The World Health Organization has named Ghana among 15 countries it will focus its attention on, to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola disease.
This was after the European Union (EU) announced a review of its entry policies, and the disease was reported in the last untouched area of Sierra Leone.
The rest of the countries on the WHO’s list are Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, DR Congo, Gambia,Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan and Togo.
In a statement, the WHO’s Global Director, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall said, “the objective is to stop the transmission from occurring in these countries. They may not have a case but after one case we don’t want more, these countries need to be better prepared.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”vhQMuJ820IVeGds873QFKnYYh6wxZ1nD”]She added that, “this week we will cross 9,000 cases of Ebola and 4,500 deaths. The outbreak continues to hit health workers hard. So far 427 health care workers have been infected with Ebola and 236 have died.”
Meanwhile Senegal and Nigeria are expected to be declared Ebola-free within a few days, despite having had the disease there.
Most of the affected countries have been struggling to contain the virus, but these two countries [Nigeria and Senegal] have done so successfully.
The EU also announced that it was reviewing its screening controls for airline passengers leaving West Africa.
After an emergency meeting of EU health ministers, EU health chief Tonio Borg said the WHO and the EU would look into “conflicting reports” about whether the screening in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea was good enough.
A research conducted by the Northeastern University, USA, earlier said Ghana tops the list of countries at risk of recording an Ebola outbreak by October 31.
It said countries with the largest probability of seeing the arrival of the Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) cases before the end of October 2014, are Ghana, United States, France, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.
The report was compiled before Senegal, Nigeria and the United States of America (USA) recorded any case and was published on October 6, 2014.
A similar report by the Oxford University in United Kingdom also predicted that Ghana and the 14 other countries in Africa are at risk of animal-to-human transmission of Ebola by virtue of their geography.
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By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom/citifmonline.com/Ghana