tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberia is beginning to see results from international help to fight Ebola as the number of safe burials increases and laboratory testing times drop from five days to five hours in a remote area, freeing up treatment beds, U.S. envoy Samantha Power said on Tuesday.
Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet, arrived in Liberia on Tuesday after visiting Guinea and Sierra Leone to assess what more the world can do to help Ebola-stricken West Africa.
"We have a long way to go, we're on the right track, the rest of the international community needs to dig deep and step up and make contributions ... but we will stand together and we will defeat this epidemic," Power told a joint news conference with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the capital, Monrovia.
Power said safe burials were occurring at a much higher rate than the early months of the crisis. In neighboring Sierra Leone, the number of safe burials of Ebola victims has tripled in the past week in the capital Freetown. The bodies of Ebola victims are highly contagious and must be handled carefully.
...
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Espinosa, the officer in charge of the laboratory, told Power that since the lab became operational three weeks ago, it had tested some 280 samples and in that time the share of positives had dropped to a third from half.
He said this showed an increase in awareness among Liberians of Ebola's symptoms, which can be mistaken for malaria. Testing times have decreased to five hours from five days because samples no longer have to be transported to Monrovia.
...
https://news.yahoo.com/liberia-sees-results-ebola-fight-long-way-us-062942448.html
Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet, arrived in Liberia on Tuesday after visiting Guinea and Sierra Leone to assess what more the world can do to help Ebola-stricken West Africa.
"We have a long way to go, we're on the right track, the rest of the international community needs to dig deep and step up and make contributions ... but we will stand together and we will defeat this epidemic," Power told a joint news conference with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the capital, Monrovia.
Power said safe burials were occurring at a much higher rate than the early months of the crisis. In neighboring Sierra Leone, the number of safe burials of Ebola victims has tripled in the past week in the capital Freetown. The bodies of Ebola victims are highly contagious and must be handled carefully.
...
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Espinosa, the officer in charge of the laboratory, told Power that since the lab became operational three weeks ago, it had tested some 280 samples and in that time the share of positives had dropped to a third from half.
He said this showed an increase in awareness among Liberians of Ebola's symptoms, which can be mistaken for malaria. Testing times have decreased to five hours from five days because samples no longer have to be transported to Monrovia.
...
https://news.yahoo.com/liberia-sees-results-ebola-fight-long-way-us-062942448.html