{{West Africa’s Ebola epidemic is an “extraordinary event” and now constitutes an international health risk, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.}}<\/p>\n
The Geneva-based U.N. health agency said the possible consequences of a further international spread of the outbreak, which has killed almost 1,000 people in four West African countries, were “particularly serious” in view of the virulence of the virus.<\/p>\n
“A coordinated international response is deemed essential to stop and reverse the international spread of Ebola,” the WHO said in a statement after a two-day meeting of its emergency committee on Ebola. The declaration of an international emergency will have the effect of raising the level of vigilance for transmission of the virus.<\/p>\n
The agency added that while all states with Ebola transmission – so far Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone – should declare a national emergency, there should be no general ban on international travel or trade.<\/p>\n
Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s head of health security, stressed that, with the right steps and measures to deal with infected people, Ebola’s spread could be stopped.<\/p>\n
“This is not a mysterious disease. This is an infectious disease that can be contained,” he told reporters on a telephone briefing from the WHO’s Geneva headquarters. “It is not a virus that is spread through the air.”<\/p>\n
The WHO said the current outbreak was the most severe in the almost 40 years since Ebola was first identified in humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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