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 The Geneva-based U.N. health agency said the possible consequences
of a further international spread of the outbreak, which has killed
almost 1,000 people in four West African countries, were
"particularly serious" in view of the virulence of the virus.
"A coordinated international response is deemed essential to stop
and reverse the international spread of Ebola," the WHO said in a
statement after a two-day meeting of its emergency committee on
Ebola.
The declaration of an international emergency will have the effect
of raising the level of vigilance on the virus.
"The outbreak is moving faster than we can control it," the WHO's
director-general Margaret Chan told reporters on a telephone
briefing from the WHO's Geneva headquarters.
"The declaration ... will galvanize the attention of leaders of all
countries at the top level. It cannot be done by the ministries of
health alone."
The agency said that, while all states with Ebola transmission - so
far Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone - should declare a
national emergency, there should be no general ban on international
travel or trade.
"THIS CAN BE STOPPED"
Ebola has no proven cures and there is no vaccine to prevent
infection, so treatment focuses on alleviating symptoms such as
fever, vomiting and diarrhea - all of which can contribute to severe
dehydration.
Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's head of health security, stressed that, with
the right measures to deal with infected people, the spread of Ebola
- which is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids -
could be stopped.
"This is not a mysterious disease. This is an infectious disease
that can be contained," he told reporters. "It is not a virus that
is spread through the air."
Fukuda said it was important that anyone known to have Ebola should
be immediately isolated and treated and kept in isolation for 30
days. "Based on scientific studies, people who have infection can
shed virus for up to 30 days," he said.
The current outbreak, in which at least 1,711 people have so far
been infected, of whom 932 have died, is the most severe in the
almost 40 years since Ebola was identified in humans.
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The WHO said this was partly because of the weakness of the health
systems in the countries currently affected, which lacked human,
financial and material resources.
It also said inexperience in dealing with Ebola outbreaks and
misperceptions of the disease, including how it is transmitted,
"continue to be a major challenge in some communities".
"If we do not in global solidarity come together to help these
countries, they will be set back for many years," Chan said. She
noted the three hardest-hit nations had only begun to emerge and
rebuild after "years of conflict and difficulties".
Although most cases of Ebola are in the remote area where Guinea
borders Sierra Leone and Liberia, alarm over the spread of the
disease increased last month when a U.S. citizen died in Nigeria
after traveling there by plane from Liberia.
After an experimental drug was administered to two U.S. charity
workers who were infected in Liberia, Ebola specialists urged the
WHO to offer such drugs to Africans. The U.N. agency has asked
medical ethics experts to explore this option next week.
[ID:nL6N0QB5UH]
David Heymann, a former WHO official and now director of the Chatham
House Centre on Global Health Security, who this week urged the WHO
to show greater leadership and to consider allowing the use of
experimental drugs for Africans affected by Ebola, said governments
should step up their response.
The major message, he said, was that the three known measures that
stop Ebola outbreaks – hospital infection control, community
understanding of risks of infection, and contact tracing - "appear
not to have been robustly enough applied".
"Governments appear to not have been engaged as necessary," he said
in an emailed response to the WHO's statement.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland, additional reporting and editing by
Kevin Liffey)
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