The World Health Organization now has an ambitious plan.
8914 Ebola sufferers, including 4447 deaths. The latest figures for the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the World Health Organization has presented on Tuesday sound, exactly. They are not, however, emphasizing the WHO.
It is estimated that the number of cases is about twice as high. Information of helpers that are deployed in the field, prove without a doubt, writes the WHO that many cases can not be officially registered. The situation in Guinea not improve themselves, in Liberia and Sierra Leone it is getting worse even from week to week. About 70 percent of sufferers die from Ebola infection.
Alone in Liberia’s capital Monrovia, there were in the past three weeks each 200 new Ebola cases, where much of it has not yet been confirmed by laboratory tests. In Monrovia live according to a census of 2008, around one million people.
That the epidemic in West Africa can not contain within a few weeks, is now all clear. The WHO has therefore put a new goal: 70-70-60.
The numbers stand for the following:
* 70 percent of patients are to be treated so that they infect anyone.
* 70 percent of the Ebola deceased to be buried with appropriate security measures, so that no one infected at the corpse.
* The capacity for these two measures are in 60 days, so in December, ready.
WHO Ebola Plan:Up to 10,000 new cases – per week
The goal is extremely ambitious, says Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the Ebola use of the WHO. For early December, the organization expects 5000 to 10,000 new Ebola cases per week. Correspondingly large must therefore be the capacity to treat the sick and bury the dead safely.
Any delay only makes it worse, because then the number of cases steadily rising and more people would die. And more helpers and resources would be needed to curb the further spread virus.
If the set 70-70-60 target reached in December, the number of new infections should – with some delay – start to decline and fade the epidemic. Currently an ebola patient is in the section of two people who fall ill after usually eight to ten days itself. This infection rate, it is that needs to be urgently reduced.
WHO Ebola Plan:Ill on the border with Ivory Coast
But still, this relaxation is not in sight. On the contrary. Ebola spreads in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea geographically further from, says Aylward. Meanwhile, there are also sufferers in a border region of Ivory Coast. And fears that the virus could reach another country.
Currently, the experts can not even say with certainty how far away they are from the 70-70-60 target. After all, nobody knows the exact number of sufferers and the Ebola deceased. And while some in Monrovia great strides in the safe burial of the victims of epidemics have occurred, this will be much harder to implement in many other regions.
In a report dated 8 October, the WHO estimates that in Guinea actually beds are available for 76 percent of Ebola patients in treatment centers. In Sierra Leone, however, only 21 percent of patients could only about 26 percent, are adequately treated in Liberia.
