WHO chief says Ebola out of control but can be stopped

West Africa's Ebola outbreak is out of control but it can be stopped, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan told the presidents of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast at a meeting in Conakry on Friday.          

"This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response," Chan said, according to a WHO transcript.        

"This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries."
    
A U.S. aid worker who was infected with the deadly Ebola virus while working in West Africa will be flown to the United States to be treated in a high-security ward at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, hospital officials said on Thursday.                  

The aid worker, whose name has not been released, will be moved in the next several days to a special isolation unit at Emory. The unit was set up in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.                

CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said her agency is working with the U.S. State Department to facilitate the transfer.                 

Reynolds said the CDC is not aware of any Ebola patient ever being treated in the United States, but five people in the past decade have entered the country with either Lassa Fever or Marburg Fever, hemorrhagic fevers similar to Ebola.                    

News of the transfer follows reports of the declining health of two infected U.S. aid workers, Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol, who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia on behalf of North Carolina-based Christian relief groups Samaritan's Purse and SIM.               

"I remain hopeful and believing that Kent will be healed from this dreadful disease," Amber Brantly, the wife of Dr. Brantly, said in a statement.                   
Earlier on Thursday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the State Department was working with the CDC on medical evacuations of infected American humanitarian aid workers.                

The outbreak in West Africa is the worst in history, having killed more than 700 people since February. On Thursday, the CDC issued a travel advisory urging people to avoid all non-essential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the epicenter of the outbreak.                  

Brantly and Writebol "were in stable but grave" condition as of early Thursday morning, the relief organizations said. A spokeswoman for the groups could not confirm whether the patient being transferred to Emory was one of their aid workers.               

CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a conference call that transferring gravely ill patients has the potential to do more harm than good.                   
In its final stages, Ebola causes external and internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. About 60 percent of people infected in the current outbreak are dying from the illness.                   


REUTERS