July 4, 2014
UNITED NATIONS – Health ministers from 11 West African countries began a two-day Emergency Ministerial meeting in Accra, Ghana, Wednesday amid concern the outbreak of the Ebola virus that began in Ghana could spread across their region as an uncontrolled pandemic.
In a statement distributed at the United Nations, the World Health Organization, WHO, classified the current Ebola outbreak as the worst ever.
The outbreak traces back to cases appearing in rural Guinea in March, which spread across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. So far, a total of 750 cases and 455 deaths have been reported in the affected countries, according to WHO.
Reuters reported Wednesday the Red Cross was forced to temporarily suspend some operations in the country’s southeast after a marked Red Cross vehicle was confronted and stopped by a knife-wielding mob that was concerned the medical workers were responsible for spreading the disease.
The WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Luis Gomes Sambo, speaking at the opening session of the Accra meeting, called for urgent, collective cross-actions to bring an end to the outbreak.
“Your leadership is critical in ensuring that preventive and containment measures are effectively implemented in your countries,” Sambo said. “To this end, I would like to stress the need to redeploy human resources and reallocate funds to facilitate operations in affected communities.”
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