The world is on red alert for Ebola amid fears that the virulent strain of the virus, which has killed more than 4 000 people in West Africa, could spread to far-flung corners of the globe.
The death this week of the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the US and the hospitalisation in Spain of a nurse, who was the first to contract the virus outside West Africa, have changed the perception of Ebola to a global threat.
- A range of countries are bolstering screening measures with European Union health ministers holding an extraordinary meeting in Brussels this week and the issue already discussed at a US congressional hearing which heard that tightening up on flights would prevent aid and medical care from reaching the worst hit countries.
- Airline shares dipped on Friday after a commercial plane was briefly quarantined in Las Vegas when a passenger reported feeling unwell. It was the latest in a series of incidents involving airline passengers.
- There were alarms over suspected cases in countries from Macedonia to the Czech Republic to Brazil and Zimbabwe.
- The Moroccan government called for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations to be postponed due to the epidemic.
- Worries intensified over the potential impact of Ebola on commodities from West Africa.
“If this really becomes a widespread Ebola panic, and EMS crews are getting 50 Ebola false alarms a day, the system will become seriously over-extended,” said Dr Peter Taillac, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever and is spread through direct contact with body fluids from an infected person.
A study last month by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicted there could be up to 1.4 million cases of Ebola in West Africa by the middle of January.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi again assured residents on Friday that the country had the capacity to fight the scourge. Motsoaledi said the cabinet had approved R32.5 million to support South Africa’s preparedness and response activities.
“We are just ramping up efforts to fight the virus that started in December,” Motsoaledi said, adding that an advisory committee had been appointed comprising private health care professionals.
Some private health care practitioners had been put on alert and given a 24-hour number to contact the National Institute for Communicable Diseases if they encountered an Ebola case.
He said officials at the ports of entry had been trained to deal with the disease.
The EU and the US have also said they are intensifying efforts to fight the disease in West Africa.
However, UN deputy secretary-general Jan Eliasson said response to a $1 billion (R11bn) funding appeal had been slow and many more trained health-care personnel were needed to tackle the crisis in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
“It is the most extraordinary challenge that the world could possibly face,” said Dr David Nabarro, who heads the UN response to Ebola.
“You sometimes see films about this sort of thing and you imagine how could such a thing happen. This is more extreme than any film I have ever seen.”
Meanwhile the former presidents of South Africa and Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo, said the rapid spread of the virus was because of lack of capacity and ignorance.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Old Mutual Wisdom Forum gala dinner in Rosebank, Johannesburg, on Thursday night, Mbeki and Obasanjo appealed for urgent action.
Obasanjo said the disease was at first not identified.
“So it spread without people knowing what it was. By the time people knew it wasn’t ordinary, it was a pandemic. So these two things – ignorance and ability… are the most devastating problem. To make people know that once infected, you have a place to report. I think ignorance is a world disease like Ebola,” said Obasanjo.
Mbeki said the outbreak of Ebola had highlighted the urgent need to improve health infrastructure on the continent.
“Better health doesn’t only mean better drugs. It means people with the capacity to dispense the drugs and people who are qualified to deal with outbreaks,” Mbeki said.
The World Bank earlier this week warned of catastrophic consequences on the economy across the African continent estimated at £20.3bn by the end of 2015, because of the failure to adequately and urgently contain the virus.
The bank said Ebola now posed a grave danger to the international community.
Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma told the heads of the UN, World Bank and International Monetary Fund: “This slower-than-the-virus response needs to change.”
Obasanjo agreed, saying the world reaction to the Ebola outbreak, or its spread, had been found wanting, too.
“When reaction from Africa was slow, the same followed beyond Africa,” he said. - Lebogang Seale, Reuters and Sapa-AFP in the Weekend Argus