Chukwu

146 patients recover, says group

Posted by: Seun Akioye in News 7 hours ago

ONE hundred and forty-six patients have recovered from the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), also called Doctors Without Border, has said.

MSF, which has established Ebola treatment centres in the three countries, explained that once a patient recovers from the disease, such a patient becomes immune to the virus and could continue to live a normal healthy life.

The group also said an Ebola outbreak is considered to end once no new case is reported after 42 days.

In Conakry, the Guinean capital, the MSF said it admitted 232 patients with 124 confirmed Ebola cases.

The group said 64 of them recovered and returned home.

In Gueckedou, also in Guinea, of the 366 patients admitted, 169 were confirmed to have Ebola; 46 recovered and returned home.

In Sierra Leone, MSF said of the 174 confirmed Ebola patients it admitted, 36 recovered and nine were discharged on August 4, after they recovered from the disease.

In 2012, the MSF effectively contained an Ebola outbreak in Uganda by placing a control area around the treatment centre.

The organisation has 676 workers in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

MSF said it would support any effort by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to find a vaccine for the disease.

It said: “MSF welcomes the steps the WHO is taking to adopt exceptional regulatory procedures in the face of an exceptionally grave Ebola epidemic. MSF is keen that its patients benefit from any treatment that shows promise, and will continue to work with the WHO and other organisations to support an appropriate acceleration of procedure for any treatment that is considered a good candidate for a medical trial.

“The responsibility for selection of a treatment and the definition of the ethical framework for this will be in the hands of the WHO and the ministries of Health of the countries where the epidemic has spread.”