US health official tells Kenya to prepare for Ebola virus
Kenya health workers at Namanga check the body temperatures of passengers crossing into Kenyan from Tanzania on August 22, 2014. Health officials dispatched Ebola-testing equipment to the border town following a Daily Nation expose. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
NEW YORK / UNITED NATIONS
A top official of the US government agency fighting the Ebola outbreak in Africa has urged Kenya to now prepare for the arrival of the deadly disease.
“Every country, including Kenya, should be prepared for that first case,” said Dr Tom Kenyon, director of the Global Health Centre at the US Centres for Disease Control.
He stressed the urgency of putting a rapid-response team in place now.
“Don't wait until the first case arrives,” Dr Kenyon warned on Wednesday. “It will be too late.”
In Kenya, added Gayle Smith, an official at the US National Security Council, the government has information that will enable it to detect cases, report and isolate them and monitor the course of the disease.
'LIKELY TO SPREAD'
Ebola “is likely to spread to other countries,” Dr Kenyon said in a conference call with reporters.
And as the virus moves beyond West Africa, he warned, “there is the possibility of mutation that can make it more infectious or change its characteristics to make it more difficult to control.”
The virus is now “spiralling out of control," Dr Kenyon said. “It's on a scale we've never seen before.”
Dr Kenyon emphasised, however, that medical experts know how to contain the virus.
Eventually, he said, the outbreak will be contained and stopped.
