Already more than 10,000 Ebola cases

Already more than 10,000 Ebola cases

26/10/2014

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa seems to be spreading more and more. According to the latest figures, more than 10,000 Ebola cases have been registered. Nearly 5,000 people have died. Experts believe that the number of unreported cases is much higher. Some hope for news about upcoming tests with vaccines.

Over 10,000 registered Ebola cases
In West Africa, the number of registered Ebola cases has risen to more than 10,000. According to a news agency dpa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that 10,141 people were suffering from the disease and 4,922 of them died. However, experts continue to expect a high number of unreported cases. It is also reported that WHO has not updated data for Liberia for several days. In neighboring Sierra Leone, the number of Ebola cases has increased by almost 200 to 3,896 within three days. As the WHO reported in Geneva, 22 other people died of the infectious disease there.

First Ebola case in Mali
Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are the nations most affected by the epidemic. But also from other countries infections are reported again and again. It has now been reported that an infant infected with Ebola has died in Mali. This was confirmed by the director of the hospital where the girl was treated to the French broadcaster RFI late Friday evening. It was the country's first registered Ebola case during the current epidemic. According to media reports, the girl had previously been in the heavily affected neighboring country of Guinea. Both parents had died of Ebola.

No direct flights from the epidemic area to Germany
Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Susanne Glasmacher, spoke out against additional security checks at German airports. As she said on Saturday in an interview with the WDR 5 Morgenecho, it is like looking for the needle in a haystack, when all body temperature is measured by all travelers. „There is no good data to prove that this is more than actionism“, so the expert. There are no direct flights from Germany to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. In Germany there will be at most single Ebola cases. That's what Glasmacher is all about. „The infection is only transferable through direct contact with body fluids. So you really have to touch someone and you have to be visibly ill.“

Nurses in the US have survived illness
At present, news from the USA is causing quite a stir internationally. There, a nurse infected with Ebola survived the disease. As reported by the NIH National Institutes of Health on Friday, the virus was no longer detectable by the patient. She has since been released from the clinic. The woman had been infected with a man from Liberia in a hospital in Dallas, Texas. A second nurse, who had also infected with the man, has survived the disease, according to her family meanwhile. It is also reported that on Friday the first Ebola case was registered in New York. Accordingly, the 33-year-old physician of the organization Doctors Without Borders came back from West Africa a few days ago.

Possibly vaccinations from December
Something hope prepare messages of the last days. For example, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the first large-scale testing of Ebola vaccines in West Africa may begin in December. Recently there was talk of a start in early 2015. So far, doctors usually have to confine themselves to treating only the Ebola symptoms of the infected because there is no cure or approved safe vaccine yet. Patients suffer from fever, diarrhea, heavy fluid loss and external and internal bleeding to organ failure. (Ad)