Three new ebola cases detected in Liberia

Liberians are expressing fear following Friday pronouncement by health authorities that the deadly Ebola virus have resurfaced in Monrovia. New tools include an experimental vaccine that can be given to those who come into with patients.

One recommendation is that World Health Organization create a dedicated center “for outbreak response, with strong technical capacity, protected budget, and clear lines of accountability”, and that that center be governed by a separate board independent of the World Health Organization bureaucracy.

A study of how the virus was transmitted has shown that Ebola is not as contagious as many people had believed providing patients in the later stages of the disease are quickly transferred to hospital, said Professor Paul Hunter of the University of East Anglia, who led the research.

But physician Ashish Jha, co-chair of the Harvard/LSHTM panel, is hopeful that the scale of this epidemic will serve as a wake-up call.

The country’s wellbeing service on Saturday said another case was affirmed on November 19, when blood tests from a patient admitted to a doctor’s facility that week tried positive, CNN reported.

It was not until August 2014 that the World Health Organization officially designated the Ebola outbreak an worldwide public emergency.

The panel’s director, Suerie Moon of Harvard, says their findings have opened up yet another query: “Now, the billion-dollar question is whether political leaders will demand the hard but necessary reforms needed before the next pandemic”.

A third phase began in July as numbers of cases soared and alarm spread around the world.

The study, published in the worldwide Journal of Epidemiology, is the first systematic review of the risk factors associated with the transmission of Ebola.

A family member of a boy who contracted Ebola has her temperature measured by a health worker before entering the Ebola clinic in Monrovia, Liberia, were the child is being treated. Major reform of national and global systems to respond to epidemics are not only feasible, but also essential so that we do not witness such depths of suffering, death, and social and economic havoc in future epidemics. “The outbreak revealed weak spots in the global health system, and now is the time to fix them. when we will”. The epidemic in West Africa has lessons for the response to the next disease outbreak.

Liberian panel member Dr Mosoka Fallah, from the non-governmental organisation Action Contre La Faim worldwide (ACF), said the global response to the disaster had been “late, feeble and un-coordinated”.

“We are calling on the population not to panic because we have people capable of putting the situation under control”, said Sorbor George -Health Ministry Spokesman said.