WHO Chief Arrives at DRC’s Ebola Epicenter Promising All Necessary Assistance

The head of the World Health Organization arrived Saturday at the epicenter of Central Africa’s latest Ebola outbreak, promising “every assistance needed” as America and Europe rush more personnel and medical supplies to the affected region. The WHO reports 906 suspected cases and 223 deaths from the rare variant of Ebola in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with additional cases in neighboring Uganda pushing the total to more than 1,000. No approved treatment or cure exists for the rare variant of the disease, which kills 25 to 50 percent of its victims.At the hard-hit city of Bunia on Saturday, the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus planned to visit a treatment center and meet with local authorities, health workers, and affected families.“The best way to address this is to provide all the necessary support to fight the disease at its epicenter and to continue offering every assistance needed,” Mr. Tedros told reporters a day earlier at the capital, Kinshasa.“To come here is to really show to the community that they’re not alone,” he said on arrival in the country. “Pushing orders from my comfortable office in Geneva is easy, but I’m asking my colleagues to work with the community, and I am asking communities to protect themselves.”International assistance is arriving by cargo plane at Bunia later this week, with 100 tons of masks, gloves, boots, and medications provided by the European Union. The United States announced on Thursday a commitment of $80 million in aid on top of $32 million promised earlier. The State Department said the funds would pay for protective equipment for health care providers, Ebola test kits, support for health screening at airports, and contact tracing.Earlier this month, the U.S. Mission to the African Union announced funding for up to 50 treatment clinics “and associated frontline costs.” It said American funding “will stimulate the expansion of emergency treatment capacity, strengthen field operations, and accelerate the delivery of protective equipment, diagnostics, and essential health services where they are needed most.”Even so, the deputy director of operations at Doctors Without Borders called Saturday for an immediate expansion of testing, faster deployment of aid workers, and sustained access for medical supplies. “Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration,” Dr. Alan Gonzalez said in a statement. “Nobody knows the true scale and severity of this outbreak.”A plan to isolate and treat Americans exposed to the virus in Kenya is now on hold after a court acted Friday to block the entry of individuals exposed to the virus into that country until after another hearing on Tuesday.American officials, who declined to be identified by name, told reporters this week that aircraft were standing by to transport affected persons to a field hospital at a Kenyan airbase where they would be quarantined and treated by officers from the U.S. Public Health Service. But the Kenyan court, responding to a petition from an advocacy group, said no one from the affected area should be allowed into Kenya and that the field hospital should not begin operations until the petition can be considered next week.The decision to establish the field hospital was in line with a declaration by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who declared at a Cabinet meeting this week that “we cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States.” One identified American who contracted the disease after treating Ebola victims has been transported for medical care in Germany.The policy has angered some medical professionals and others who argue that the best available treatment facilities for Ebola are in America.“Americans exposed during prior outbreaks were repatriated and monitored at specialized U.S. treatment facilities,” said a statement from the American Foreign Service Association, which represents active and retired American diplomats. “Those facilities still exist, and the government has the ability to transport people safely and without endangering other travelers.”The statement added that Foreign Service employees “are there because the U.S. government sent them. They are entitled to the same standard of care that has always applied, including the right to come home.”

WHO Chief Arrives at DRC’s Ebola Epicenter Promising All Necessary Assistance

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