Liberia
declares state of emergency over outbreak as US president says more information
needed about experimental drugs.
US President
Barack Obama said it is "premature" to send an experimental medicine
for the treatment of Ebola to West Africa, as Liberia declared a state of
emergency amid an outbreak that shows no signs of slowing.
Obama said
on Wednesday that he lacked enough information to green-light a promising
medicine called ZMapp that was already used on two American aid workers who saw
their conditions improve by varying degrees.
"We've
got to let the science guide us and I don't think all the information is in on
whether this drug is helpful," Obama said. "The Ebola virus, both
currently and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health
infrastructure in place."
But he said:
"the countries affected are the first to admit that what's
happened
here is the public health systems have been overwhelmed. They weren't able to
identify and then isolate cases quickly enough."
"As a
consequence, it spread more rapidly than has been typical with the periodic
Ebola outbreaks that occurred previously."
Meanwhile, Liberia’s
president declared a state of emergency Wednesday and announced quarantine
checkpoints as the government struggles to deal with the deadliest Ebola
outbreak in the African nation’s history.
"The
government and people of Liberia require extraordinary measures for the very
survival of our State and for the protection of the lives of our people,"
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in a statement distributed by the
government's Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs, and Tourism.
Sirleaf
blamed the disease's spread on "ignorance, poverty, as well as entrenched
religious and cultural practices." She said the extraordinary measures
could result in "the suspension of certain rights."
The country,
one of four hardest-hit by the outbreak, has had nearly 520 suspected and
confirmed cases of Ebola and 282 deaths, according to statistics from the
health ministry and the World Health Organization. Overall at least 932 deaths
have been blamed on the disease, which has no known cure. The government also
announced the deployment of military personnel to affected areas of the
country, where troops will enforce checkpoints, keep residents from uninfected
areas from travelling into regions that have seen the disease and provide
security for health workers.
The World
Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday it would ask medical ethics experts
to explore emergency use of experimental treatments.
There is no
known cure for Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever that has overwhelmed rudimentary
healthcare systems and prompted the deployment of troops to quarantine the
worst-hit areas in the remote border region of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone.
International
alarm at the diffusion of the virus increased when a US citizen died in Nigeria
last month after flying there from Liberia.
Authorities
said on Wednesday that a Nigerian nurse who had treated Patrick Sawyer also
died of Ebola, and five other people were being treated in an isolation ward in
Lagos, Africa's largest city.
Public
health officials should do all they can to contain the outbreak, and during the
course of that process, authorities can assess whether new drugs or treatments
can be effective, Obama said.
"We're
focusing on the public health approach right now, but I will continue to seek
information about what we're learning about these drugs going forward," he
said.
US health
regulators have authorised the use of an Ebola diagnostic test developed by the
Pentagon for use abroad on military personnel, aid workers, and emergency
responders, the US Food and Drug Administration said.
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