Ebola epidemic an international health emergency, WHO declares

West Africa’s Ebola epidemic is an “extraordinary event” and now constitutes an international health risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Aug. 8.

The Geneva-based U.N. health agency said the possible consequences of a further international spread of the outbreak, which has killed almost 1,000 people in four West African countries, were “particularly serious” in view of the virulence of the virus.

“A coordinated international response is deemed essential to stop and reverse the international spread of Ebola,” the WHO said in a statement after a two-day meeting of its emergency committee on Ebola. The declaration of an international emergency will have the effect of raising the level of vigilance on the virus. “The outbreak is moving faster than we can control it,” the WHO’s director-general Margaret Chan told reporters on a telephone briefing from the WHO’s Geneva headquarters.

“The declaration ... will galvanise the attention of leaders of all countries at the top level. It cannot be done by the ministries of health alone.” The agency said that, while all states with Ebola transmission - so far Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone - should declare a national emergency, there should be no general ban on international travel or trade. Ebola has no proven cures and there is no vaccine to prevent infection, so treatment focuses on alleviating symptoms such as fever, vomiting and diarrhoea - all of which can contribute to severe dehydration.

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