Ebola could take 6 months to eradicate

Medical charity says extraordinary measures
needed to contain killer disease stalking several
West African nations .
The Ebola epidemic is moving faster than the
authorities can handle and could take six months
to bring under control, medical charity Medicins
Sans Frontieres ( MSF) has said .
The warning came a day after the World Health
Organization ( WHO) said the scale of the
epidemic had been vastly underestimated and
that "extraordinary measures " were needed to
contain the killer disease.
New figures released by the UN health agency
showed the death toll from the worst outbreak of
Ebola in four decades had climbed to 1 , 145 in
the four afflicted West African countries -
Guinea, Liberia , Nigeria and Sierra Leone .
"It is deteriorating faster, and moving faster ,
than we can respond to , " Joanne Liu , the chief
of MSF, told reporters in Geneva on Friday . She
added that it could take six months to get the
upper hand.
"It is like wartime , " she said a day after
returning from the region. "I don't think we
should focus on numbers . To really get a reality
check , we 're not talking in terms of weeks, but
months to control the epidemic ."
Elhadj As Sy, the new head of the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, painted a similarly bleak picture,
speaking of a " fear factor " in affected
countries that was hampering medical assistance .
Also recently returned from the region , As Sy
said he agreed with MSF' s' six - month timeline
for bringing the outbreak under control.
The WHO said on Thursday it was coordinating "a
massive scaling up of the international response "
to the epidemic .
"Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the
numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly
underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak, "
it said .
There were signs too that affected countries were
stepping up their efforts to contain the virus.
Sierra Leone 's President Ernest Koroma
announced plans on Friday for the construction
of several more Ebola treatment centres , while
urging the international community to "act
quickly " in the fight against Ebola.
The four new centres would be built by the Red
Cross and MSF, he said.
Experimental drugs
The epidemic erupted in the forested zone
straddling the borders of Guinea, Sierra Leone
and Liberia earlier this year, and later spread
to Nigeria.
Liu said while Guinea was the initial epicentre of
the disease , the pace there has slowed, with
fears now focused on the other countries.
"If we don't stabilise Liberia , we' ll never stabilise
the region , " she said .
No cure or vaccine is currently available for
Ebola, with the WHO authorising the use of
largely untested treatments in efforts to combat
the disease .
Hard -hit nations are awaiting consignments of
up to 1 , 000 doses of the barely tested drug
ZMapp from the United States , which has raised
hopes of saving hundreds .
Canada says between 800 and 1 , 000 doses of a
vaccine called VSV -EBOV , which has shown
promise in animal research but never been tested
on humans , would also be distributed through the
WHO.
But MSF' s Liu warned against focusing on drugs.
"In the short term, they 're not going to help that
much , because we don't have many drugs
available. We need to a get a reality check on
how this could impact the curve of the epidemic, "
she said .
Sierra Leone 's chief medical officer Brima Kargbo
this week spoke of the risks facing health workers
fighting the epidemic , which has killed 32 nurses
since May as well as an eminent doctor.
"We still have to break the chain of transmission
to separate the infected from the uninfected , "
Kargbo said .
Economic toll
The Ebola epidimic threatens to jeopardise the
fragile economies of the affected West African
nations.
In Nigeria, in particular , a more serious outbreak
could severely disrupt its oil and gas industry if
international companies are forced to evacuate
staff and shut operations, rating agency Moody 's
has warned .
Across the region , draconian travel restrictions
have been imposed and a number of airlines
have cancelled flights in and out of West Africa.
Guinea, where at least 380 people have died ,
became the latest country to declare a health
emergency, ordering strict controls at border
points and a ban on moving bodies from one
town to another.
As countries around the world stepped up
measures to contain the disease, the
International Olympics Committee said athletes
from Ebola - hit countries had been barred from
competing in pool events and combat sports at
the Youth Olympics opening in China on Saturday.
Follow Evidnels Nelson on twitter @ MztaNelz