When a 2-year-old boy in the Guéckédou region of Guinea fell ill on Dec 6, 2013, no one knew that his illness signalled the start of the biggest, most complex outbreak of Ebola the world has ever seen. As of mid-August, 2240 cases and 1229 deaths have been reported from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. But WHO believes that these numbers could be a vast underestimation, as the numbers of deaths and infections increase rapidly in Liberia and Sierra Leone. On Aug 8, after a 2 day meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, WHO declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern”.
Home Diseases and Conditions Communicable Disease Ebola: a failure of international collective action