There are two months when the clinician Tim Flanigan arrived in Monrovia to help Liberia fight the epidemic Ebola, it took a few days to ambulances responding to calls, people dying were turned back by the processing units designated health workers ran short of personal protective equipment, and the bodies were left in the street. "There was not enough support and there was a feeling that the world did not understand the severity of this outbreak was," says Flanigan, who works at Brown University and former head of the diseases program infectious there. "Now it is radically different in Monrovia, which is wonderful to see."
Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general in charge of the operational response to Ebola World health Organization (WHO) confirmed at a conference today to the press that the number of reported cases has declined in Liberia, the hardest hit country in the Ebola epidemic. "It seems that the trend is real in Liberia and that there may in fact slow down the epidemic there, "said Aylward, who noted that the processing units in several localities have cots available.
But both Aylward and Flanigan immediately warned against premature optimism. "My god, the biggest mistake now would be if people start to think," Do we really need all these new beds? "Aylward said." I'm terrified that information will be misinterpreted and that people will begin to think, "Oh, great, it's under control." This is like saying your pet tiger is under control. This is a very sick, very dangerous. "
Flanigan stressed that the time has come "to redouble our efforts," especially regarding contact tracing and monitoring their health. "This is a huge task and we need to do a much better job," he said.
the apparent drop in cases could mean that families hiding patients and secretly bury the dead, but it is more likely a combination of factors has reduced the spread of the disease, Aylward said. "there was a rapid expansion in safe burial practices during the month of September," he said adding that many people were isolated in Ebola treatment units, the fight against the spread. It was also intensive community education about the disease, including how it spreads, the value of seeking care, and self-protection strategies.
The situation in Guinea and Sierra Leone, two other hard-hit countries, has not changed dramatically.
in a disconnect with the decline in Liberia, Aylward noted that WHO has raised 13,703 cases -a leap of more than 3000 of [chiffrespubliés on 25 October. He said the sharp increase reflects reports a backlog of cases, "With the huge increase in some countries, especially in September and October, people behind on their data," he said. "They were left with huge piles of paper and we knew we were going to see jumps in the case at times that will be associated with more new data coming in that are actually old cases." He said about 2,000 of the latest cases were from old data to Liberia, where case reports continues to be a problem. "The data for Liberia are missing for 19, 20, 21, 26 and 27 October," the WHO's last update note.
The WHO has warned that the models suggested the epidemic would be increase exponentially and the virus was ahead of the answer. Aylward noted progress, but pointedly did not say the answer was now ahead of the virus. "We are seeing a slowdown in the rate of new cases certainly," said Aylward. "The danger is now instead of a downward trend that we descend to zero, we find ourselves with an oscillating pattern where the disease starts to go up and down and start getting re-infected areas. What happens to the heat this thing and it slows down is not necessarily what brings us to zero. "
Flanigan said the challenge now is to obtain better data for counties, not countries, to better understand the contours of the epidemic and how to respond." Each case has need a very aggressive response, "he said
* Ebola files :. given the current Ebola epidemic, unprecedented in terms of the number of people killed and the rapid geographic spread, science and science Translational Medicine made a collection of research articles and news on the viral disease available free researchers and the general public.
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