{"id":51624,"date":"2014-09-27T14:25:47","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T14:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=51624"},"modified":"2014-09-27T14:25:47","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T14:25:47","slug":"liberias-chief-medical-officer-under-ebola-quarantine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=51624","title":{"rendered":"Liberia’s chief medical officer under Ebola quarantine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liberia’s chief medical officer has put herself under quarantine for 21 days, after one of her assistants died from the deadly Ebola virus.<\/p>\n

Bernice Dahn, a deputy health minister, said she had no symptoms but wanted to take every precaution.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says more than 3,000 people have died from Ebola in West Africa.<\/p>\n

Liberia has been the worst hit by the disease, accounting for 1,830 deaths – 150 in the last two days alone.<\/p>\n

Health workers have been particularly vulnerable to the virus, which is spread by the infected bodily fluids of patients.<\/p>\n

Health organisations recommend isolating people for at least 21 days, which is the maximum incubation period for the virus.<\/p>\n

‘Every precaution’<\/p>\n

Ms Dahn told the BBC on Saturday that she herself had decided to go into quarantine and wanted to abide by that rule.<\/p>\n

She said she had not come into contact with any other infected people, apart from the office assistant who died this week, but wanted to take every precaution.<\/p>\n

\"Health<\/div>\n
Liberia has just 51 doctors to serve the country’s 4.2 million people<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ms Dahn, who represented Liberia at international Ebola conferences, has also instructed her staff to stay at home for the same time period.<\/p>\n

The WHO highlighted the risk of infection for health workers trying to stem the outbreak in its\u00a0latest report<\/a>\u00a0released on Friday,<\/p>\n

It said 375 workers are known to have been infected, and that 211 have so far died from the virus in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n

The deaths and sickness have made it even more difficult for the\u00a0already weak healthcare systems<\/a>\u00a0in the affected countries to cope with the outbreak.<\/p>\n

There is a severe shortage of hospital beds, especially in Liberia.<\/p>\n

\"AEbola’s incubation period can last from two days to three weeks<\/div>\n

The latest WHO figures indicate that more than 6,500 people are believed to have been infected in the region in the world’s most deadly Ebola outbreak.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pledged to send $130m in emergency aid to the countries worst hit by the virus: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n

Some 600 people have died in Sierra Leone and a similar number in Guinea, where the outbreak was first confirmed in March.<\/p>\n

Senegal, which has also been affected by the virus, is due to receive a flight carrying aid workers from one of the three worst affected countries, Guinea, for the first time on Saturday, AP news agency reports.<\/p>\n

The airport in Dakar has set up a terminal specifically for humanitarian flights where thorough health checks will be conducted, the agency quotes World Food Program spokesman Alexis Masciarelli as saying.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, US President Obama called for more urgent action in the response to the outbreak.<\/p>\n

“There is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"line\"<\/div>\n

Ebola virus disease (EVD)<\/p>\n

\"Ebola<\/div>\n
    \n
  • Symptoms include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage<\/li>\n
  • Spread by body fluids, such as blood and saliva<\/li>\n
  • Fatality rate can reach 90% – but current outbreak has mortality rate of about 70%<\/li>\n
  • Incubation period is two to 21 days<\/li>\n
  • There is no proven vaccine or cure<\/li>\n
  • Supportive care such as rehydrating patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting can help recovery<\/li>\n
  • Fruit bats, a delicacy for some West Africans, are considered to be virus’s natural host<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Liberia’s chief medical officer has put herself under quarantine for 21 days, after one of her assistants died from the deadly Ebola virus. Bernice Dahn, a deputy health minister, said she had no symptoms but wanted to take every precaution. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says more than 3,000 people have died from Ebola in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":51625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-51624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}