THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned against hiding infected family members and friends, to further help health workers in curbing the spread of the Ebola virus.
It also said people in the West African sub-region should beware of “shadow zones” where medics cannot go, adding that these factors meant that the Ebola epidemic was bigger than initially thought.
This is just as the organisation said death toll from the epidemic hit 1,427 from 2,615 known cases.
According to a report by Reuters, in its latest update, the WHO “reported 142 new laboratory-confirmed, probable or suspected cases of Ebola and 77 more deaths from four affected countries – Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.”
The organisation lamented that the scale of the world’s worst Ebola outbreak had been concealed by families hiding infected loved ones in their homes and the existence of “shadow zones” that medics cannot enter, adding that it would issue a global strategy plan by next week end in Geneva.
Reuters also noted that independent experts had raised concerns similar to WHO’s a month ago “that the contagion could be worse than reported, because some residents of affected areas are chasing away health workers and shunning treatment.”
According to the report, despite initial assertions by regional health officials that the virus had been contained in its early stages, Ebola case numbers and deaths have ballooned in recent months as the outbreak spread from its initial epicentre in Guinea.
A WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Security, Keiji Fukuda, who spoke during a visit to Liberia, said it will take six to nine months for the epidemic to be finally halted.
“We think six to nine months is a reasonable estimate,” the official said.
Besides, the WHO identified under-reporting of cases as a key problem, especially in Liberia and Sierra Leone, currently the two hardest hit countries.
But it said it was now working with Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to produce “more realistic estimates.”
The WHO statement read: “As Ebola has no cure, some believe infected loved ones will be more comfortable dying at home,” noting that the outbreak had been underestimated.
“Others deny that a patient has Ebola and believe that care in an isolation ward – viewed as an incubator of the disease – will lead to infection and certain death.
“Corpses are often buried without official notification. And there are ‘shadow zones,’ rural areas where there are rumours of cases and deaths that cannot be investigated because of community resistance or lack of staff and transport.
“In other cases, health centres are being suddenly overwhelmed with patients, suggesting there is an invisible caseload of patients not on the radar of official surveillance systems,” it added.
Source: Tribune
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