The first of the new patients was a 15-year-old boy called Nathan Gbotoe from Paynesville, a suburb east of the capital Monrovia.
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Ashish K Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and a professor of medicine, said: “People at WHO were aware that there was an Ebola outbreak that was getting out of control by spring… and yet it took until August to declare a public health emergency. All of the healthcare workers who came in contact with the patient have been notified”, she said. Meanwhile, the outbreak stubbornly hangs on: on 20 November, hopes that it might be declared over by year’s end were dashed by reports of new infections in Liberia, which has twice been declared Ebola-free. “Ebola is not for one person. All of us are here and are living together”.
There were conflicting reports as to whether the boy had attended school after he became contagious. This is especially necessary as neighbouring countries like Liberia and Guinea are battling with a resurgence of the virus.
The report said that even when the epidemic entered its second phase, in March 2014, the World Health Organization failed to mobilise global assistance “despite ample evidence the outbreak had overwhelmed national and non-governmental capacities”. “We have to engage in a sustained effort for as long as it takes to make sure the world is better prepared for the next pandemic”. “The lack of capacity to detect the virus for several months was a key failure, allowing Ebola eventually to spread to bordering Liberia and Sierra Leone”.
“There were deep inadequacies in the arrangements for sharing information, for example, on how fast the virus was spreading in real time”, she said in a telephone interview. For example, scientists have shown that the virus remains present for months in the semen of a few men who recover from the disease, and could, in rare cases, be transmitted through unprotected sex.
In all cases, however, transmission has been stopped quickly, with a low number of subsequent cases.
They were especially critical of the WHO, the United Nations body set up in 1948 to lead the global fight against disease and ill health.
“We have three confirmed cases and have listed 153 contacts, and we have labelled them as high, medium and low in terms of the risk”, Liberia’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francis Kateh told Reuters late on Saturday. “CDC will continue to assist on the frontlines. Liberia is now highly experienced at stopping Ebola clusters, and with vigilance, they will do it again”.
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More than 11,200 people have died from the worst outbreak on record of the viral Ebola fever since the epidemic broke out in December 2013 in neighbouring Guinea.
