US president said world leaders need to marshal extra finances and personnel to ‘bend the curve of the epidemic’ in west Africa
Barack Obama has warned of Ebola spreading globally if more is not done to stop the epidemic raging out of control in West Africa, as he urged the US public not to lose sight of the importance of focusing on tackling the disease at its source.
As pressure grows on the White House to explain failures to prevent a second case of transmission within the US, the president also announced a “rapid response Swat team” from the Centers for Disease Control and prevention would aim to respond to any further infections within 24 hours “to take local hospitals step by step through what needs to be done”.
“I am confident we can stop it spreading in the US but it becomes more difficult if this epidemic rages out of control in west Africa, if it does it will spread globally … in an age of frequent travel,” he told reporters after an emergency meeting of his cabinet.
“It is very important for us to understand that the investment we make in helping Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is an investment in our own public health. It is the single most important thing we can do.”
He also stressed that though protecting healthcare workers was a top priority, the risks of transmission should not be overstated.
“I shook hands with, hugged and kissed nurses at Emory [hospital in Atlanta] because of the work they are doing and I felt perfectly safe doing so … this is not like the flu,” Obama added.
Earlier, the president declared Ebola a “threat to international security” in a video conference with European leaders.
Speaking with leaders in the UK, France, Germany and Italy shortly after the case was confirmed on Wednesday, the US president said they all urgently needed to marshal extra finances and personnel to “bend the curve of the epidemic” in west Africa.
But the White House rejected growing calls for greater restrictions on passengers travelling from the region, insisting travel bans were “not on the table” at present and would prove counter-productive by hampering local aid efforts.
The administration is under growing political pressure over its handling of the crisis after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admitted “shortcomings” in its initial response to the first confirmed US case in Dallas, admitting it should have done more to ensure the hospital was following infection-control protocols.
Spokesman Josh Earnest resisted calls for a single “Ebola czar” to be placed in charge of the federal response on Wednesday, claiming “people should be encouraged that the government is demonstrating a tenacious adaptive response [to Ebola]” among a range of federal agencies.
“We have designated very clear lines of responsibility in terms of which agencies are responsible for which aspects of this response,” he added.
Nonetheless, political criticism is expected to grow tomorrow when a committee of the House of Representatives convenes the first public hearing into recent developments.
Republican Tim Murphy, chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee, said “so far traveler self-reported screening procedures and hospital infection control measures have been demonstrated failures” in a statement issued ahead of Thursday’s testimony from CDC director Tom Frieden.
White House officials acknowledge failures in the initial response and said a “very concerned” Obama had cancelled travel plans and convened an urgent meeting with cabinet members on Wednesday to make sure federal agencies were properly co-ordinated.
“It is unacceptable that even one health care worker was exposed to this virus while they were providing medical treatment to this patient. So that is an indication that there were shortcomings,” Earnest told reporters in a White House press briefing dominated by the crisis.
However, he rejected suggestions that the multiple transmissions among health workers in Dallas constituted an “outbreak” of the disease, insisting that the risk of the disease spreading in the general public in the US remained “extremely unlikely”.