The World Health Organization's two-day emergency Ebola virus conference ended on Thursday afternoon. Top officials and others with knowledge of the deadly virus met in Accra, Ghana, and apparently left with a common strategy in mind.
The current Ebola virus outbreak that's ongoing in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia has killed nearly 500 people since the first case was documented back in December. It's the largest outbreak in history since the virus was discovered in Central Africa back in 1976. As of late, the outbreak has seen a resurgence in cases and deaths.
Because there has been no success in eradicating the presence of Ebola, the WHO called for a two-day conference with 11 of the top African health officials so they could devise a strategy to help contain and hopefully eradicate the virus. According to international officials, West African countries and international health organizations adopted a new plan of action to enact more effective response measures.
Countries agreed to commit to better surveillance in order to detect Ebola cases, enhance cross-border collaboration, improve engagement with local communities, and provide closer cooperation with the WHO and its partners. The health ministers were also recommended setting up a sub-regional control center in Guinea to coordinate technical support.
"I certainly expect that we are going to be dealing with this outbreak, minimum, for a few months to several months," said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's assistant director general of health security, in this BBC News article. "I really hope to see a turnaround where we begin to see a decrease in cases in the next several weeks."
The WHO has attributed three factors to the Ebola outbreak, including the burial of victims in accordance with tradition, the dense populations around and in the capital cities of Guinea and Liberia, and the constant cross-border trade in the region. Some of the native people don't believe the disease exists and are aggressive and threatening toward medical staff.
However, now that the three governments of nations in the most danger have formally communicated and devised a plan, international health officials hope to see a drop in cases and deaths in the near future. They did not discuss further financial support, seemingly implying that the apparent issue was communication between the countries.
You can read more about the two-day Ebola virus in this Reuters news article.
