Sheik Umar Khan, the head virologist fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and credited with treating over 100 patients, contacted the virus himself according to sources linked to president’s office. During an interview last month, he emphasized the risks involved by medical staff facing infectious diseases: “Even with the full protective clothing you put on, you are at risk” he admitted. In the same treatment center three nurses already died, three days ago. One of the world’s most virulent diseases, Ebola hemorrhagic fever continues to be a threat in several countries in West Africa. With a fatality up to 90 %, Ebola already claimed 660 deaths this year. Three African countries are affected until now, with the following confirmed cases (as of 24 July 2014): Guinea – 314 deaths, Liberia – 127 deaths, and Sierra Leone – 219 deaths.
WHO is actively supporting the national response plans in the affected regions, this requiring significant human and financial resources for implementing effective containment measures. Alongside epidemiologists, communication and law enforcement personnel, hundreds of volunteers were selected, trained and deployed in the areas hit by the disease. Ebola virus disease (EVD) appears in remote villages near tropical forests, being spread across human communities by human-to-human transmission, after a previous contact to organs or bodily flids of infected animals. Although fruit bats are considered the main natural hosts of the virus, documented infections were linked to other species like cimpanzees, gorillas, other primates, porcupines and a species of forest antelope.
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WHO media sources state that this is the 25th Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak since the discovery of the virus, in 1976. Back then, one of the 2 simultaneous outbreaks affected a village near the Ebola river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, from which the virus was subsequently named. The recent outbreak is facing almost unprecedented containment difficulties partly due to the multiple locations involved ( 60 in June), partly induced by the inadequate precautions taken by the medical personnel and the members of the affected communities. Superstitions leading to blaming doctors for killing the patients are followed by the refusal of some people to accept the isolation of their sick relatives in hospitals. Cases of violence of locals against the aid workers were registered, thus compromising the effort of authorities to implement the vital containment policies. According to MSF sources, any new site would significantly reduce the chances of controlling the disease due to lack of personnel.