Progress made in Ebola fight
The outgoing head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) spoke of the progress made in the fight against the virus
Anthony Banbury recently took part in his final press conference in the role of head of UNMEER, where he spoke about his tenure and discussed the current status of the fight against the ongoing outbreak of Ebola and the progress that has been made in combatting it. He was first appointed in September 2014, and is now handing over the reins of the operation to Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
At the press conference, Banbury cited recent figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) that counted a total of 20,206 confirmed, probable or suspected cases of the virus as of mid-January 2015, and 7,905 reported deaths, although figures from later in the month from the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) set the total of confirmed, probable and suspected cases at 21,086, and the reported deaths at 8,289.
“It’s important to remember where we were when we started,” commented Banbury, speaking to journalists in Accra, Ghana, which is the location of UNMEER’s headquarters. “At the time, there were predictions of up to 1.4 million cases of Ebola by the start of the year. Here we are in January and we have a total of around 20,000 cases instead of 1.4 million. That’s 1.4 per cent of what was being projected as a possibility by credible scientists back in September.” He also spoke of his last trip to check the progress of the battle against Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three most affected countries, each of which has been furnished with an increased number of isolation beds. Guinea now has two beds per patient, while Libera has 14 and Sierra Leone has 3.5. The three countries thus now have the capacity to isolate and treat 100 per cent of confirmed patients, and sufficient burial teams to ensure that burials for 100 per cent of all deaths are safe and dignified.
While there has been definite, demonstrable progress, however, Banbury highlighted a number of challenges that remain. These include the geographical dispersion of the disease, and the urgent need to change the behaviour of local communities to reduce their resistance to the major interventions necessary to contain the outbreak. “We are engaged in a big battle with this disease,” said Banbury. “It’s an insidious, invasive disease that attacks people through acts of caring and kindness … it’s going to be extremely hard for us to bring it down to zero but that is what we will do. That is the only acceptable outcome.” He described setting ambitious targets as ‘an obligation’, and in order to achieve them, he said that effective community engagement will be fundamental, as will constant vigilance and the 100-per-cent commitment of all involved. “It’s a bit like putting seatbelts in cars,” he explained. “If you have seatbelts in cars you can save a lot of lives, but only if people use those seatbelts.”
On 29 December last year, the first imported case of Ebola in the UK was detected, in a healthcare worker returning from an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone. Public health measures were implemented, and the risk of the disease being imported into the UK is still seen to be very low, as is the risk of transmission occurring within the UK.
This January, the WHO also published an article, ‘Travelling the last mile to zero Ebola cases in Liberia’, detailing the efforts taken by both health authorities and civilians in Liberia – where the number of new cases has been falling recently – to finally stamp out the disease. The article focuses on two remote villages, Bomota and Quewein, and covers both the procedures put in place by organisations such as WHO, Médecins Sans Frontières and the CDC, and the resistance that they have occasionally faced, which has hampered efforts to eradicate the disease.