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(L-R) World Health Organization (WHO)
Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, Senior United Nations System Coordinator
for Ebola Virus Disease Dr. David Nabarro, and Assistant WHO Director-General
for Health Security Dr. Keiji Fukuda appear at a briefing to discuss the Ebola
outbreak in West Africa at the UN Foundation in Washington September 3, 2014.
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Guinea's
government said on Wednesday that Ebola had spread to a previously unaffected
region of the country, as U.S. experts warned that the worst ever outbreak of
the deadly virus was spiralling out of control in West Africa.
Guinea, the
first country to detect the haemorrhagic fever in March, had said it was
containing the outbreak but authorities announced that nine new cases had been
found in the southeastern prefecture of Kerouane.
The
area, some 750 km (470 miles) southeast of the capital Conakry, lies close to
where the virus was first detected deep in Guinea's forest region. The epidemic
has since spread to four other West African countries and killed more than
1,500 people.
"There
has been a new outbreak in Kerouane but we have sent in a team to contain
it," said Aboubacar Sikidi Diakité, head of Guinea's Ebola task force. He
insisted the outbreak was being contained.
The
nine confirmed cases were in the town of Damaro in the Kerouane region, with a
total of 18 people under observation, the health ministry said in a statement.
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| Prefecture of Kerouane, Guinea (Source: Facebook) |
The
latest outbreak started after the arrival of an infected person from neighbouring
Liberia, the ministry said. Guinea has recorded a total of 489 deaths and 749
Ebola cases as of Sept. 1.
President
Alpha Conde urged health personnel to step up their efforts to avoid new
infections.
"Even
for a simple malaria, you have to protect yourselves before consulting any sick
person until the end of this epidemic," Conde said in a televised
broadcast. "We had started to succeed but you dropped the ball and here we
go again."
Cases
of Ebola have been reported in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal
and Democratic Republic of Congo. The cases in Congo, which include 31 deaths,
are a separate outbreak unrelated to the West African cases, however, the World
Health Organization has said.
OUTBREAK
NOT UNDER CONTROL
In
a stark analysis last week, the WHO warned that the Ebola epidemic in West
Africa could infect more than 20,000 people and spread to 10 countries. It
outlined a $490 million roadmap for tackling the epidemic.
Doctor
Tom Kenyon, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Centre for
Global Health, said on Wednesday the outbreak was "spiralling out of
control" and he warned that the window of opportunity for controlling it
was closing.
"Guinea
did show that with action, they brought it partially under control. But unfortunately
it is back on the increase now," he told a conference call. "It's not
under control anywhere."
He
warned that the longer the outbreak went uncontained, the greater the
possibility the virus could mutate, making it more difficult to contain. Ebola
is only transmitted in humans by contact with the blood or bodily fluids of
sick people, though suspected cases of airborne infection have been reported in
monkeys in laboratories.
A
senior U.S. official rebutted a call from medical charity Medecins Sans
Frontieres (MSF) for wealthy nations to deploy specialised biological disaster
response teams to the region. MSF on Tuesday had warned that 800 more beds for
Ebola patients were urgently needed in the Liberian capital Monrovia alone.
"I
don't think at this point deploying biological incident response teams is
exactly what's needed," said Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the
President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy on the National
Security Council.
She
said the U.S. government was focussing efforts on rapidly increasing the number
of Ebola treatment centres in affected countries, providing protective
equipment and ensuring local staff received training.
"We
will see a considerable ramp-up in the coming days and weeks. If we find it is
still moving out of control we will look at other options," Smith told a
conference call.
The
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday a federal contract
worth up to $42.3 million would help accelerate testing of an experimental
Ebola virus treatment being developed by privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical
Inc.
Human safety trials are due
to begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and later this year on
one from NewLink Genetics Corp.
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