AFRICA/LIBERIA - Health systems are near collapse, while those infected double every three weeks

Friday, 26 September 2014

Monrovia (Agenzia Fides) - Perhaps there has never been so much attention on a single issue at a global level, but the reality on the ground today is this: The sick are desperate, their families and caregivers are angry, and aid workers are exhausted. Fear and panic have set in as infection rates double every three weeks. A growing number of people are dying of other diseases like malaria because health care systems have collapsed. "We fall further behind the epidemic’s deadly trajectory. Today, Ebola is winning" is the desperate appeal to the United Nations by Joanne Liu, International President of Doctors Without Borders.
"Our facility with 150 beds in Monrovia opens each morning for just thirty minutes – says the statement sent to Fides Agency -. Only a few people are admitted, rapidly filling the few beds that become free overnight because of the deaths. The sick continue to be turned away, only to return home and spread the virus among loved ones and neighbors. Member States cannot simply limit themselves by building isolation centers. It is not enough!" continues Liu. "At the same time, it is necessary to create a vaccine, an additional tool to break the chain of transmission of the virus. The current models of vaccine development, however, will not work".
The access and the rapid distribution of a safe vaccine to the most affected populations is of fundamental importance. In West Africa the situation is dramatic, the 6 centers of the NGO are overcrowded and many sick people are sent away because there are no more beds. Meanwhile, MSF (2,800 local staff and 260 international staff), work day and night to save as many lives as possible.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 2,950 people have been hospitalized in the centers, of whom 535 have healed. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 26/09/2014)


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