Precautions: Residents wash their hands with chlorinated water at the fishing port of Conakry in Guinea. Photo: AP
Geneva: Targets to reduce the spread of Ebola by isolating patients and burying bodies safely have been reached in Liberia and Guinea, with Sierra Leone set to follow within weeks, the World Health Organisation said.
The organisation’s assistant director-general, Bruce Aylward, said it was stepping up its efforts to trace people who had close contact with Ebola victims, with a goal of halting the epidemic by mid-2015.
The response had shown that “you can catch up with Ebola, even on this scale”, he said.
He said cases in the three worst-affected west African countries were fairly stable, from 1000 a week in early October to 1100 now.
The organisation set a “70-70-60” target on October 1 to have 70 per cent of Ebola patients isolated in treatment centres in the three countries and to ensure that 70 per cent of the bodies of victims are buried safely within 60 days.
Mr Aylward said the target had been met in everything except Sierra Leone’s isolation rate, which was being skewed by rising cases in the west of the country and should be met “in coming weeks”.
He said the “prognosis for Sierra Leone is actually very good”.
But he stressed: “There is no room for optimism when you are dealing with the Ebola virus. It’s not about low numbers, it’s about zero.”
He urged the international community not to lose interest.
Of the $US1.55 billion ($1.83 billion) pledged for the Ebola fight, about $US920 million had been delivered.
The shortfall meant that in some areas, “a lot of things have been done on the cheap”, he said.
AFP