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THE WORLD IS falling behind in a desperate race to stop the deadly Ebola outbreak, a top UN official has warned amid dire predictions that thousands of new infections are possible before year’s end.
“Ebola got a head start on us,” said Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response.
“It is far ahead of us, it is running faster than us, and it is winning the race,” he told the UN Security Council in New York, by remote link from UNMEER headquarters in Accra, Ghana.
“If Ebola wins, we the peoples of the United Nations lose so very much,” he said.
The UN official made his remarks as the World Health Organization said the Ebola infection rate could soon reach 10,000 a week as world leaders prepared to hold talks on the crisis at the United Nations. Banbury stressed:
We either stop Ebola now or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan.
He said that with infection rates rising exponentially every day, UNMEER will need 7,000 beds for treatment.
“There’s much bad news about Ebola but the good news is we know how to stop it.”
But to push back the spread “we must defeat Ebola and we must do it fast,” he said.
5,000 – 10,000 cases per week
WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward, describing his figures as a working forecast, said the epidemic “could reach 5,000 to 10,000 cases per week by the first week of December.”
The latest death toll is 4,447, from 8,914 recorded infection cases, Aylward said as the worst-ever Ebola outbreak spirals in the three hardest-hit countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The WHO has called current Ebola outbreak the most severe in modern times.
On Monday, US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for the international campaign against the haemorrhagic virus, which is killing seven out of every ten people infected, to be intensified.
Governments in west Africa have been scrambling to contain the epidemic, with patients in the Liberian capital describing devastating scenes as patients struggled to survive during a strike by health workers.
A 56-year-old Sudanese doctor who had worked as a UN volunteer in Liberia died of Ebola late Monday after arriving in Germany last week for treatment.
Outside west Africa, medical staff have also been particularly at risk during the crisis, with at least two cases of contamination reported despite stringent safety protocols.
A second health worker in Texas has tested positive for the disease.
Meanwhile, a nurse in the city of Dallas, Texas, Nina Pham, said she was “doing well” after catching the virus while caring for a Liberian Ebola patient, but authorities warned 76 workers may have been exposed during his 10-day stay in the hospital.
Spanish nurse Teresa Romero, 44, is thought to have caught Ebola while treating an elderly missionary who was infected in Sierra Leone and died on September 25.
A hellish situation
Liberian health workers ended a two-day strike on Tuesday to secure risk pay for Ebola, saying they put the needs of their endangered country first following global appeals to end the protest.
George Williams, secretary general of the National workers union of Liberia, told AFP that workers had ended the stoppage “first for the love we have for our people, and also because we received calls from everywhere in the world”.
Ninety-five Liberian health workers have died so far in the epidemic. Their colleagues want compensation for the risk of dealing with Ebola, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids and for which there is no vaccine or widely available treatment.
In the capital Monrovia, a hospital patient quoted on local radio described scenes of desolation, with sick people climbing over the fence to escape from the treatment unit after being deserted by striking staffers.
“We risk our life every day and the government remains insensible to our plight,” said Alphonso Wesseh, a health worker who joined the strike.
It’s not human. One of our colleagues died because he was bitten by a patient.
“We are in a hellish situation, so we want to be compensated as a result.”
‘Heroic work’
In the US, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a $25 million donation to the US Centers for Disease Control Foundation to help efforts to contain the epidemic.
“Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work,” Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page.
British troops began loading a ship that will set sail for Sierra Leone this week to help in efforts to contain the outbreak.
The civilian-staffed military ship will travel with three helicopters, air crews and engineers to provide transport and support to medical teams and aid workers.
Amid the scramble to stop the disease spreading, Africa Cup of Nations’ hosts Morocco saying Tuesday they were weighing whether to cancel the continental showcase.
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Christ that was difficult to read, the journalistic equivalent of constipation. Took about 5 solid pushes to get to the end of a load of shite which recommends basically giving up your potentially lucrative position in finance or IT to take up a role of fitness instructor.
7. Retire early
Moving job beats taking the easy way out and emigrating.
What’s wrong with being a fitness instructor?
@ mr McShite..’to give up a lucrative appointment ‘ I fear you missed the whole point of the article…and I wish you all the lucrative success you deserve (with $uck all happiness ) ….M@ron!!!
What’s really gonna happen is that your dreams are challenged very early in life, aspirations to change the world are wiped out as society is gonna try and convince you that you’re only too lucky to have a job so you’re gonna bullsh@t your way into an organisation, tell them you can turn things to gold and lose yourself in the process! Once your in the door your gonna be one of two people – one that stomps on people’s heads to get to the top of that ladder and would throw their mother under a bus to get advancement and live out your days constantly striving for that carrot, convincing yourself (and others) that you’ve made it. or 2 – be the guy who’s a stepping stone for number 1. you’ll retire at 60 ( if you aren’t canned before that) and live out your golden years in silent regret as to why you didn’t change careers sooner! Don’t let youth be wasted on the young. Follow your dreams kids. If Paul Murphy can be TD, you can be an astronaut!!!
Paul Murphy is an Astronaut Or a spacecadet?
Paul Murphy is a better td than most. At least he stands for something which can’t be said for many others who just roll over.
I think that parents have a duty to encourage their children to follow their dreams. Admittedly, some children are more focussed than others, but i believe everyone can find their passion in life if they believe they have the freedom and support to seek it. Parents are best usually placed to give this.
A friend of mine’s father was a man of science and industry, studying maths and physics and later entering the oil industry. My friend decided to follow his dream and get into film. Admittedly, his family were in a position to support him financially through film school, but they also supported him emotionally. I know that his father often questioned the career choice, but the look on his face seeing his son addressing the audience after the premiere screening of his debut feature film in the London Film Festival spoke volumes. Pure pride.
Hmmm… I followed some of these steps… I wanted to be a make up artist so I trained and gif qualified, I got a mentor and did a lot of free work. But in the end I just want good enough. I know I’m not supposed to say that but it’s true. I’m not naturally artistic. I’m creative to a certain extent but I can’t draw a straight line so what I imagine in my head turns out a big mess . Now the training and work experience and practice were great and I loved the work I did with a passion but in an industry flooded with other make up artists and feck all work I had to look at it realistically. There is better artists out there . They have natural gifts and talents and I just can’t compete with my mediocre skills. Some might say I just gave up but I think I’m just looking at it realistically. So now I’m 33 and don’t know what to do ‘when I grow up’.
Become a writer. You have a flowing style and nice, self-deprecating wit. And apparently every 1000 words is equivalent to a picture anyway so you can live your dream through the back door :-)
That hallway could do with a lightbulb.
The girl in the pic has a strange cock.tus
How does one become a lazy gigolo?
Vote FG.
Do nothing and you’ll get screwed.
hhmm yeah no! out of all the people i know 1 dows that they love… 1! I know another whos killing themselves to break into what they love and are failing! Frankly i think the emphasis on career etc is too much… I think people should work whatever theu can and aim to be happier in life in general and focus on being good ppl. Articles like this fuel the world we live in now… ppl in a rush to they skip lunch, or cause crashes rushing to work, spend their lives in their office. I work, i stay where I am not because I love it, not because Im passionate about it… i stay because 1 i work with good ppl, 2 its money and 3 I get a good amount of time off to focus on the important things. A job is a job if you can do what you love brilliant Im happy for you… but dont waste your life chasing it… get a job to give you money and start living out of work.
“In the words of Wayne Gretzky, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” – Rockfrocks, 2015
* not plagiarism
Utter utter rubbish…sadly people pay to hear the kind of rubbish that’s in that article. ….I’m passionate about Salsa dancing….trust me I’ll never earn money at it…..In fact I’m spending alot of my hard earned money on it…..such utter mis guided claptrap.
have to agree. keep your passion and your work separate, lest disappointments in work impact on your happiness. I’ve seen that alot. that doesn’t mean don’t enjoy your job but don’t hang your happiness it.
Just ask Alan Watts – https://youtu.be/5QnZVZzosw8 – What if money didn’t exist. Makes you really think.
Wrong question Alan. This is “what if money were no object?” ie you have sufficient surplus to do what you want. The last serious attempt at making money not exist was led by Pol Pot in Cambodia in the 1970s. That did not have a happy ending (gross understatement).
Making money DOES MATTER….
6. Make sure to get to Electric Picnic!!!
Turning a passion into a career can still have the same effect. You still will have to do work you don’t necessarily want to do in order for income to pay the bills
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