Ebola forces state emergency in Sierra Leone

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The World Health Organization is launching a $100 million response plan to combat an “unprecendented” outbreak of Ebola in West Africa that has killed 729 people out of 1,323 infected since February, the agency said on Thursday.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan will meet in Conakry, Guinea on Friday with the presidents of affected West African nations, the United Nations health agency said in a statement.

“The scale of the Ebola outbreak, and the persistent threat it poses, requires WHO and Guinea,Liberia and Sierra Leone to take the response to a new level and this will require increased resources, in-country medical expertise, regional preparedness and coordination,” said Chan. Clinical doctors and nurses, epidemiologists, and logisticians are urgently needed, she said.

Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency and called in troops to quarantine epicenters of Ebola on Thursday, joining Liberia in imposing tough controls to curb the worst ever outbreak of the virus amid fears it could spread beyond West Africa.

The outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever, for which there is no known cure, began in the forests of remote eastern Guinea in February, but Sierra Leone now has the highest number of cases. – Tribune wire report