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   From: uy@libscum.com   
      
   ABUJA, Nigeria — In an ominous warning as fatalities mounted in   
   West Africa from the worst known outbreak of the Ebola virus,   
   the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday that   
   the disease was moving faster than efforts to curb it, with   
   potentially catastrophic consequences, including a “high risk”   
   that it will spread.   
      
   The assessment was among the most dire since the outbreak was   
   identified in March. The outbreak has been blamed for the deaths   
   of 729 people, according to W.H.O. figures, and has left over   
   1,300 people with confirmed or suspected infections.   
      
   Dr. Margaret Chan, the W.H.O. director general, was speaking as   
   she met with the leaders of the three most affected countries —   
   Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — in Conakry, the Guinean   
   capital, for the introduction of a $100 million plan to deploy   
   hundreds more medical professionals in support of overstretched   
   regional and international health workers.   
      
   “This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak   
   response,” Dr. Chan said, according to a W.H.O. transcript of   
   her remarks. “If the situation continues to deteriorate, the   
   consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also   
   severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to   
   other countries.”   
      
   She said the outbreak was “caused by the most lethal strain in   
   the family of Ebola viruses.”   
      
   The gathering in Conakry came a day after West African leaders   
   seemed to quicken the pace of efforts to combat the disease, in   
   what some analysts depicted as a belated acknowledgment that the   
   response so far had been inadequate.   
      
   Before the meeting started, there were indications of discord.   
   The leader of Guinea’s Ebola task force said that emergency   
   measures in Liberia, where schools have been closed, and Sierra   
   Leone could set back efforts to control the worst outbreak of   
   the virus since it was identified almost four decades ago.   
      
   “Currently, some measures taken by our neighbors could make the   
   fight against Ebola even harder,” Aboubacar Sidiki Diakité, the   
   Ebola task force leader, told Reuters. “When children are not   
   supervised, they can go anywhere and make the problem worse. It   
   is part of what we will be talking about.”   
      
   Sierra Leone’s emergency measures include house-to-house   
   searches for infected people and the deployment of the army and   
   the police.   
      
   One person, traveling from Liberia, died in Nigeria, Africa’s   
   most populous nation, which introduced airport screening of   
   travelers from the stricken region on Thursday.   
      
   Dr. Chan said that the virus seemed to be spreading in ways   
   never seen before.   
      
   “It is taking place in areas with fluid population movements   
   over porous borders, and it has demonstrated its ability to   
   spread via air travel,” she said.   
      
   Making matters worse, health workers have been hit particularly   
   hard. Top doctors in Sierra Leone and Liberia have died, and two   
   American aid workers have contracted Ebola and were due to be   
   flown back to the United States for further treatment at Emory   
   University in Atlanta.   
      
   The two Americans will be flown in a private air ambulance   
   specially equipped to isolate patients with infectious diseases.   
   The first patient is expected to arrive as soon as Saturday, an   
   Emory spokeswoman said.   
      
   “We feel that we have the environment and expertise to safely   
   care for these patients and offer them the maximum opportunity   
   for recovery from these infections,” said Dr. Bruce S. Ribner,   
   an infectious disease specialist at Emory, in a news conference   
   on Friday.   
      
   According to the W.H.O., the $100 million plan “identifies the   
   need for several hundred more personnel to be deployed in   
   affected countries to supplement overstretched treatment   
   facilities.”   
      
   Hundreds of international aid workers and W.H.O. specialists   
   “are already supporting national and regional response efforts,”   
   the statement said. “But more are urgently required. Of greatest   
   need are clinical doctors and nurses, epidemiologists, social   
   mobilization experts, logisticians and data managers.”   
      
   As the alarm about the outbreak has grown, so, too, have   
   concerns that the disease will be carried farther afield by   
   travelers from the stricken countries, despite official efforts   
   to tamp down such fears. The African Union, for instance,   
   announced on Friday that it was postponing a routine rotation of   
   its peacekeeping force in Somalia for fear that new soldiers   
   arriving from Sierra Leone could be infected.   
      
   The Philippines said Friday that it would screen travelers from   
   Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia when they arrived and monitor   
   them for a month. Lebanon was reported to have suspended work   
   permits for residents of the same three countries, news reports   
   said. Emirates, an airline based in Dubai, said it was   
   suspending flights to Conakry as of Saturday.   
      
   At the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Moses Sesay, a cyclist   
   from Sierra Leone, told the British tabloid The Daily Mirror   
   that he had been quarantined for four days and tested for Ebola   
   after feeling ill. He has since been pronounced healthy.   
      
   “I was sick. I felt tired and listless,” he said. “All the   
   doctors were in special suits to treat me — they dressed like I   
   had Ebola. I was very scared.”   
      
   Jackie Brock-Doyle, a spokeswoman for the games, told reporters   
   on Friday: “Just to be really clear, there is no Ebola in the   
   athletes’ village. There is no Ebola virus in Scotland.”   
      
   Only weeks after the beginning of the outbreak, the Italian   
   authorities tightened health checks at airports and on ships   
   from West Africa. But epidemiologists in Italy suggested there   
   was little risk that the hundreds of unauthorized migrants who   
   reach southern Italy every day were carrying the virus.   
      
   “Migrants cross the desert in journeys that take weeks, if not   
   months, before getting on a boat to Europe,” Dr. Massimo Galli,   
   a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of Milan,   
   said in a telephone interview. “They would manifest the disease   
   long before arriving.”   
      
   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/world/africa/african-leaders-   
   and-who-intensify-effort-to-combat-ebola-virus.html?_r=0   
      
        
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)