The United Nations Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) team has clarified that Ebola affected patients will not be treated in Ghana despite establishing a Mission in the country.
The head of the UNMEER team, Anthony Banbury who addressed the media in Accra on Tuesday allayed fears about the safety of Ghanaians because of the establishment of the mission in the country saying “Ghana is not at risk.”
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Manhyia South, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh had raised concerns about the establishment of the UN’s mission in Ghana claiming they could import the deadly disease into the country.
He also argued that the UN could donate monies to the Ebola stricken countries instead of establishing the mission in Ghana to battle the disease.
Established just more than a week ago by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNMEER is the first-ever UN health emergency response mission.
[contextly_sidebar id=”egzngE0ObXAGu4DoQwa84oXHjXMUwWMK”]It seeks to harness the capabilities and competencies of all the relevant UN actors under a unified operational structure to ensure a rapid, effective, efficient and coherent response to Ebola.
About two hundred and fifty (250) UN personnel have been deployed, out of which one hundred (100) will be operating from Ghana.
Mr. Banbury added that their priority will be to keep all their staff healthy.
“We are putting in place stringent measures and precautionary standards, UNMEER will have an even higher standard…which will be rigidly applied,” he added.
“It is very important to understand that if UNMEER was not created, if the world was not responding now, Ebola will continue to spread. Right now experts from the US center for disease control say if left unchecked, the number of people affected by the disease will reach 1.4 million by January and every country in the world will be at risk, very very serious risk,” he warned.
He pledged to work with religious bodies, opinion leaders and the media in Ebola affected areas to ensure that education was intensified.
The disease has so far caused 2,811 deaths and affected over 5,840 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and most recently Nigeria.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the figure could reach 20,000 by November if efforts to tackle the outbreak were not stepped up.
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana