Teenager Dies of Ebola in Liberia

Amid widespread and accelerating globalization, the report calls on world leaders to build an effective system of global health governance to deal with future outbreaks that potentially threaten all countries.

The report also obliquely criticized the leadership of Secretary General Margaret Chan, who has acknowledged that the agency’s response capabilities were overwhelmed by the scope and intensity of the Ebola crisis.

Failings by the World Health Organisation (WHO) played key role in the Ebola disaster, according to new report. The group was convened by the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The panel proposed 10 major reforms, including strengthening incentives for the early recording of epidemics, and providing scientific reasons for trade and travel restrictions.

It’s known that the virus can stay in survivors’ semen, ocular fluid, breast milk and spinal fluid for months after their recovery, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization has not responded to the panel yet.

But he cautioned against proposals that would move a few authority out of the WHO’s hands. Health officials in the country are now investigating the potential source of the Ebola virus that infected the teenager. The boy, who lived in Liberia’s eastern Paynesville district, was the first Ebola patient in the country since it was declared Ebola-free for a second time in September. The deceased boy’s father and brother are also suffering from Ebola, and three other relatives are being monitored to determine if they have contracted the virus.

The first of the latest patients is a boy from the capital, Monrovia, who officials initially said was 10 but now say is 15. When this current Ebola epidemic ends, it will have the dubious distinction of being the worst Ebola outbreak ever known, sickening almost 29,000 people and killing more than 11,000.

The country was first declared Ebola-free on May 9, but new cases emerged in June resulting in two deaths, including one in mid-July.

The new Ebola cases in Liberia raise fears that neighboring Sierra Leone, recently declared Ebola free, might suffer similar setbacks in eradicating the disease.