CDC PUBLIC HEALTH IMAGE LIBRARYAs health officials in West Africa continue their efforts to contain the region’s deadly Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday (July 31) announced a $100 million response plan to supply the affected countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone with needed resources, including “several hundred more personnel . . . to supplement overstretched treatment facilities,” according to a WHO statement. That same day, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that it would be sending around 50 of its experts to West Africa to assist in outbreak containment efforts.
Since March, there have been more than 1,300 confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola virus disease reported, including 729 deaths.
“Ebola is worsening in West Africa,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden told reporters on Thursday. Containing the outbreak, he added, is “not going to be quick, it’s not going to be easy, but we know what to do.”
Frieden noted that “Ebola poses little risk to the U.S. general population.” As a precautionary measure, his agency has issued a Level 3 travel warning, advising travelers not to visit the three countries at the center of the outbreak unless absolutely necessary.
There is no vaccine to prevent Ebola virus disease, and no specific treatments for it. Tekmira Pharmaceuticals’s RNA interference (RNAi)-based drug, “TKM-Ebola,” is the only candidate ...
