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 At least 26 members of the U.S. House of Representatives want travel
bans and visa restrictions on citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone, the impoverished West African nations hardest hit since the
worst Ebola outbreak on record.
The calls came a day after the death in Texas of the first person to
be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States and after the United
States and Britain announced they will start screening many airline
passengers arriving from affected countries for fever and other
Ebola symptoms.
Fears of having to clean up vomit and feces in airplane bathrooms
from infected travelers with insufficient protection prompted about
200 airline cabin cleaners to walk off the job for a day in New
York.
"The nation is frightened, and people are frightened of this
disease," U.S. cabinet secretary for health, Sylvia Burwell said at
a press conference. "They’re frightened because it has a very high
mortality rate. They’re frightened because they need to learn (and)
understand what the facts are about that disease.”
The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever and is spread through
direct contact with body fluids from an infected person, who would
suffer severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. About half of people
infected have died in the current outbreak, although up to 90
percent of patients have died in previous outbreaks.
Spain's government rejected criticism that its methods of dealing
with Ebola were not working and blamed the infection of a Spanish
nurse on human error.
Teresa Romero, 44, is the first person to have contracted Ebola
outside of Africa after becoming infected by one of two Spanish
priests repatriated from Africa with the disease. Romero had told
another doctor at the hospital that she had touched her face with
her protective gloves.
Macedonia officials are taking strict precautions after a British
man died within hours of being admitted to hospital in the capital
Skopje on Thursday.
Authorities sealed off a hotel where he had been staying, isolating
a second Briton and hotel staff. The man had been suffering from
fever, vomiting and internal bleeding, but it is not yet known
whether he had Ebola and it was unclear whether he had traveled to
West Africa.
A hospital in the Czech capital Prague is testing a 56-year-old man
with symptoms of the disease who had recently traveled to Liberia, a
spokesman said.
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Containing the outbreak has become a top priority for governments
around the world and is no longer just an issue in West Africa,
where nearly 4,000 have died since March. The U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that the number of
infections could rise to up to 1.4 million people by early next year
without a massive global intervention to contain the virus.
Shares in Lakeland Industries a maker of suits to wear while
handling hazardous materials, rose more than 50 percent on Thursday
on expectations of the disease spreading.
"OUR PEOPLE ARE DYING"
African leaders called on other countries to provide more money and
equipment to deal with the Ebola crisis in the worst affected
countries.
"Our people are dying," Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma told
major donors gathered at a World Bank meeting in Washington via
video conference. "Without you we can't succeed, without your quick
response a tragedy unforeseen in modern times will threaten the
well-being and compromise the security of people everywhere," he
said.
Liberia is facing recession and may need more aid from the
International Monetary Fund given the budgetary toll the virus has
taken, its finance minister said.
"Our economy was projected to grow by 5.9 percent. That growth has
been revised down to 1 percent," Finance Minister Amara Konneh said
on Wednesday. "Technically, the economy is in recession."
A Republican senator on Thursday was holding up a $700 million
increase in the U.S. military's funding to fight Ebola in West
Africa, citing concerns about protecting the health of military
staff and the long-term future of the mission.
The Obama administration originally requested a shift of $1 billion
from a war operations budget to support the deployment of nearly
4,000 troops to West Africa and set up dozens of medical treatment
facilities.
(Reporting by Sonya Dowsett in Madrid, Kole Casule in Skopje, Laila
Kearney and Sebastien Malo in New York, David Morgan, Lesley
Wroughton, Patricia Zengerle and David Lawder in Washington; Writing
by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Grant McCool)
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