The Ebola epidemic will be discussed at the UN Security Council in an emergency session on Thursday. Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea are the most affected countries Ebola outbreak killing more than 2,400 people.
There has been a request to ease the restrictions on West Africa by the president of Ghana, as it is affecting the regional economies negatively. “The Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the humanitarian crisis there is a top national security priority for the United States,” the White House said in a statement issued to the press. The American president will announce details when he visits the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Senior administration officials have said that they believe the surge will start to turn the epidemic around. The World Health Organization, in West Africa have all exclaimed that the epidemic is raging out of control. WHO’s latest count has 4,784 people infected, and 2,400 of them dead, but experts allsay that’s an underestimate, as many cases haven’t been counted. WHO says as many as 20,000 people could be infected in near future. One of the senior administration officials said the number could rise upto hundreds of thousands of people.
“U.S. Africa Command will establish a regional intermediate staging base to facilitate and expedite the transportation of equipment, supplies and personnel,” the White House said in a statement. “Just as the outbreak has worsened, our response will be commensurate with the challenge.”
“In partnership with the United Nations Children Fund, the Paul Allen Family Foundation, and other key partners, we will immediately target the 400,000 most vulnerable households in Liberia,” the White House said. “As part of this effort, this week, USAID will airlift 50,000 home health care kits from Denmark to Liberia to be hand-delivered to distant communities by trained youth volunteers.”
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