CDC Director: Ebola Crisis
Unprecedented
Thursday, 07 Aug 2014 04:09 PM
The current Ebola crisis in West Africa is
on pace to sicken more people than all other previous outbreaks of the disease
combined, a U.S.
health official said Thursday.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a
congressional hearing that the outbreak is unprecedented in part because it's
in a region of Africa that never has dealt
with Ebola before. He said the outbreak's two main drivers are lax infection
control during patient care and risky burial practices.
The outbreak can be stopped with
tried-and-true public health measures, Frieden said, but it will be laborious.
Any case missed or exposed person lost to follow-up could keep the outbreak
going.
"If you leave behind even a single
burning ember, it's like a forest fire," he said. "It flares back
up."
More than 1,700 people have been sickened
in the current outbreak, which began in March. Nearly 1,000 have died,
according to the World Health Organization.
On Thursday Frieden said there's no way to
know exactly how accurate that count is, or if some cases are going unreported.
"The data coming out is kind of a
fog-of-war situation," he said.
The U.S. Agency for
International Development is spending $14.5 million to combat the
Ebola outbreak and has sent a disaster response team to the area to assist
workers, said assistant administrator Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez.
The work includes sending tens of thousands of protective suits for health care
workers.
In addition, CDC
is working to open more treatment centers and expand proper Ebola testing,
Frieden said.
Frieden didn't rule out the possibility
that a traveler could arrive in the U.S. infected with Ebola. But he
said he is confident there will not be a large Ebola outbreak here. The CDC has
put hospitals on alert for symptoms, and to check whether people are recent
travelers so that they can promptly isolate any suspected cases until proper
testing can be done.
Ariel Pablos-Mendez
Ariel
Pablos-Mendez is an assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Note: Nils
Daulair was the deputy assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID), and a U.S. representative for the World Health Organization.
Rajiv Shah
is the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID), the agriculture under secretary for the Barack Obama administration, and the director of
agricultural development for the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation was a funder for the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID), the Bloomberg
Family Foundation, and the World Health Organization.
Bloomberg
Family Foundation was a funder for the CDC Foundation,
and World Health Organization.
CDC Foundation
is a foundation for the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC).
Michael
R. Bloomberg is the founder of the Bloomberg Family
Foundation, was a donor for the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, a benefactor for the Harlem
Children's Zone, and a donor at the Robin Hood
Foundation.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Harlem
Children's Zone, and the Robin Hood Foundation.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to
Promote Open Society, and married in 2013.
Jim Yong
Kim was a guest at George Soros’s
2013 wedding, and a director, HIV-AIDS department for the World Health
Organization.
Nils
Daulair was a U.S. representative for
the World Health Organization, and the
deputy assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID).
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