Ebola infection cases now jump 10,000 mark, WHO report says

Volunteers wearing UNDP t-shirts show a placard to raise awareness on the symptoms of the Ebola virus to students of the Sainte Therese school, in the Koumassi District, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. In its latest report, WHO says the number of cases in the Ebola outbreak has exceeded 10,000, with 4,922 deaths. PHOTO | SIA KAMBOU | AFP

What you need to know:

Only 27 of the cases have occurred outside the three worst-hit countries— Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Mali became the latest nation to record a death, a two-year-old girl.

The WHO said the number of cases was now 10,141 but that the figure could be much higher.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Ebola vaccine doses could be rolled out to West Africa by mid-2015.

Geneva, Saturday

The number of cases in the Ebola outbreak has exceeded 10,000, with 4,922 deaths, the World Health Organization says in its latest report.

Only 27 of the cases have occurred outside the three worst-hit countries— Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Those three countries account for all but 10 of the fatalities.

Mali became the latest nation to record a death, a two-year-old girl.

More than 40 people known to have come into contact with her have been quarantined.

The latest WHO situation report says Liberia remains the worst affected country, with 2,705 deaths.

Sierra Leone has had 1,281 fatalities and there have been 926 in Guinea.

Nigeria has recorded eight deaths and there has been one in Mali and one in the US.

The WHO said the number of cases was now 10,141 but that the figure could be much higher, as many families were keeping relatives at home rather than taking them to treatment centres. It said many of the centres were overcrowded.

SHOWS NO CHANGE

And the latest report also shows no change in the number of cases and deaths in Liberia from the WHO’s previous report, three days ago.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Ebola vaccine doses could be rolled out to West Africa by mid-2015, the World Health Organisation said Friday, after a new case of the virus was reported in New York and a two-year-old girl died in the first case in Mali.

The search for an effective vaccine to fight the disease took on fresh urgency as the WHO said several hundred thousand doses could be available in the “first half” of 2015.

“All is being put in place to start efficacy tests in the affected countries as early as December,” WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny said.

Kieny’s comments came after closed-door talks to try to find a vaccine to beat a disease that has ravaged the west African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In Mali, authorities continue to try to trace anyone who may have had contact with the victim there.

The child had travelled more than 1,000 km (600 miles) from Guinea through the capital, Bamako, to Kayes.

“The child’s symptomatic state during the bus journey is especially concerning, as it presented multiple opportunities for exposures, including high-risk exposures, involving many people,” the WHO said.

The girl’s mother died in Guinea a few weeks ago and the child was then brought by relatives to Mali.

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita told French radio on Saturday: “We are doing everything to prevent panic and psychosis.

“Since the start of this epidemic, we in Mali took all measures to be safe, but we never hermetically sealed ourselves from this.”

He said the border with Guinea would remain open.

Mali authorities on Saturday scrambled to calm fears over Ebola after the disease claimed the girl.

The World Health Organization warned the situation in Mali was an “emergency,” and said in its latest Ebola situation report that the biggest outbreak on record has now killed 4,922 people, the vast majority of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 10,141 cases reported.

EASE FEARS

Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita aimed to ease fears after the death of a two-year-old girl, the first Ebola case in the landlocked country, who travelled from neighbouring Guinea.

“We are doing everything to prevent panic and psychosis,” he said in an interview with French radio.

In the US, the governors of the states of New York and New Jersey have ordered a mandatory 21-day quarantine period for all doctors and other travellers who have had contact with Ebola victims in West Africa.

Anyone arriving from affected West African countries without having had confirmed contact with Ebola victims will be subject to monitoring by public health officials.

The move follows the diagnosis in New York of Dr Craig Spencer, who had been working in Guinea.

The first person to be quarantined under the rules was a female health worker who arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday.

NO SYMPTOMS

She had no symptoms then but has since developed a fever and is being monitored.

Also in the US, two nurses infected while caring for dying Dallas patient Thomas Eric Duncan have been declared free of the virus.

One, Nina Pham, 26, met President Barack Obama at the White House, hours after being discharged.

In his weekly radio and online address, Mr Obama repeated that people cannot contract Ebola unless they have come into direct contact with an infected patient’s bodily fluids.

He said the disease had to be stopped at source in Africa.

Mr Obama added: “Patients can beat this disease, and we can beat this disease. But we have to stay vigilant... And we have to be guided by the science, we have to be guided by the facts—not fear.”

Europe’s main stock markets fell on Friday over concerns about New York’s first case, in a doctor who tested positive after returning from treating sufferers in Guinea, one of the countries at the epicentre of the world’s worst outbreak of the disease.