Nigerian President declares complete eradication of Ebola

On September 24, during the United Nations General Assembly session taking place in New York (USA), Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan announced that his country had completely eliminated the Ebola epidemic.

Previously, doctors advised waiting for more time to confirm the outbreak had ended, but the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health confirmed that all patients under monitoring had recovered.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. (Source: businessdayonline)

The head of the Ebola Emergency Operations Centre in the capital Lagos said the outbreak in Nigeria can only be officially declared over if there are no new cases after 42 days or two consecutive incubation periods since the last case.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria has not had any new cases of Ebola since September 8. If the situation remains unchanged, Nigeria could be declared Ebola-free by October 20.

Also during the discussion, Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abduel Aziz called on the international community to make greater efforts in providing vaccines to combat and prevent the Ebola epidemic raging in West Africa. He stressed that the sudden outbreak of Ebola has created a great challenge, but measures to control the spread of the disease are still limited and ineffective.

Amid concerns that the Ebola outbreak could spread beyond West Africa, the United Nations has established a special mission to combat Ebola (UNMEER), a team of which has arrived in the capital Accra (Ghana) to set up logistics for a region-wide campaign.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that 20 times more equipment, transport, care and monitoring services will be needed. The Chinese ambassador to Liberia said on September 24 that Beijing would provide an additional $40 million to help control the epidemic.

A high-level meeting to respond to the Ebola outbreak is scheduled to take place on September 25 at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, US, as new research has warned of a spike in infections in the coming weeks if swift action is not taken to control the spread.

On the same day, the head of the Ebola treatment center in the capital Monrovia, Liberia, the country currently suffering the most severe epidemic in West Africa, called on recovered people to donate blood to help treat other patients.

Blood transfusions from people who have recovered from Ebola could help prevent or treat infections, a study suggests.

Previously, WHO said products and serum extracted from the blood of people who have recovered from the disease could be used to treat Ebola until experimental treatments under development are put into production.

William Pooley, a British patient who recovered from Ebola in London, traveled to the United States to donate blood to help a patient with hemorrhagic fever. According to Pooley, the blood of a recovered patient contains antibodies against the Ebola virus. When this blood is transfused to a patient, it can repair blood vessels and prevent blood loss.

In Guinea, on September 23, people attacked and looted a local health office in the town of Forecariah, 100 km from the capital Conakry, after Red Cross health workers arrived to bury three members of a family who had recently died of Ebola. This was the latest in a series of attacks that have hampered efforts to control the disease in West Africa.

Last week, eight members of a team of health workers trying to educate people about the risks of Ebola were murdered in a remote area of ​​southeastern Guinea./.

According to VNA