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| Ebola virus has killed at least 282 people in Liberia alone |
Liberia declares state of emergency over outbreak as US
president says more information needed about experimental drugs.
US President Barack
Obama said it is "premature" to send an experimental medicine for the
treatment of Ebola to West Africa, as Liberia declared a state of emergency
amid an outbreak that shows no signs of slowing. Obama said on
Wednesday that he lacked enough information to green-light a promising medicine
called ZMapp that was already used on two American aid workers who saw their
conditions improve by varying degrees.
"We've got to
let the science guide us and I don't think all the information is in on whether
this drug is helpful," Obama said. "The Ebola virus, both currently
and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health
infrastructure in place." But he said:
"the countries affected are the first to admit that what's happened here
in the public health systems have been overwhelmed. They weren't able to
identify and then isolate cases quickly enough."
"As a
consequence, it spread more rapidly than has been typical with the periodic
Ebola outbreaks that occurred previously."
The World Health
Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday it would ask medical ethics experts to explore
emergency use of experimental treatments.
There is no known
cure for Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever that has overwhelmed rudimentary
healthcare systems and prompted the deployment of troops to quarantine the
worst-hit areas in the remote border region of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone.
International alarm
at the diffusion of the virus increased when a US citizen died in Nigeria last
month after flying there from Liberia.
Authorities said on
Wednesday that a Nigerian nurse who had treated Patrick Sawyer had also died of
Ebola, and five other people were being treated in an isolation ward in Lagos,
Africa's largest city.
Public health
officials should do all they can to contain the outbreak, and during the course
of that process, authorities can assess whether new drugs or treatments can be
effective, Obama said.
"We're focusing
on the public health approach right now, but I will continue to seek
information about what we're learning about these drugs going forward," he
said.
US health regulators
have authorised the use of an Ebola diagnostic test developed by the Pentagon
for use abroad on military personnel, aid workers and emergency responders, the
US Food and Drug Administration said.
State of emergency
Health workers across
West Africa appealed on Wednesday for urgent help in controlling
the world's worst ever outbreak as the death toll climbed to 932 and
Liberia declared the state of emergency.
In a speech, Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia's president, said that "ignorance and
poverty, as well as entrenched religious and cultural practices, continue
to exacerbate the spread of the disease."
"The government
and people of Liberia require extraordinary measures for the very survival
of our state and for the protection of the lives of our people," Sirleaf
said in an official statement.
The state
of emergency was for 90 days, effective from Wednesday. Liberia also
shut a major hospital where several staff were infected, including a
Spanish priest.
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