Phl urged to send volunteers to Africa to contain Ebola

MANILA, Philippines - As the death toll from Ebola virus reached 3,083, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged the Philippines to send medical volunteers to West Africa to help contain the dreaded disease.

WHO Country Representative Julie Hall over the weekend said the situation in West Africa is “quite critical” and having medical volunteers from the Philippines will be greatly appreciated.

WHO’s Roadmap Update as of Sept. 26 shows that there are 6,553 Ebola cases in three West African countries: Guinea with 1,074, Liberia with 3,458, and Sierra Leone with 2,021. 

“The numbers are rising in the cases of Ebola. If the Philippines were able to send medical workers, that is extremely welcome,” Hall told the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines-Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines Forum last Saturday afternoon.

However, the roadmap said that “exposure of health care workers to the virus continues to be an alarming feature of the outbreak.” As of Sept. 23, at least 375 health workers were known to develop the virus, including 211 deaths.

WHO has projected that the outbreak will run for the next nine months, affecting up to 20,000 people. It is estimated that 500 to 1,000 nurses are needed in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“The only way the outbreak will be controlled is to have sufficient health workers to be able to make sure that cases are treated, so that they volunteer to come forward, so that contact tracing can be done and the chain of transmission will be stopped… With nine months of this happening, a very large amount of support is required for West Africa,” Hall said. – With Mayen Jaymalin