Calling Ebola outbreak “unprecedented,” WHO plans $100-million fight

Today, the World Health Organization announced that it will begin coordinating a $100-million effort to contain the Ebola virus outbreak that's currently killing people in West Africa. The 120 staff WHO has directed to combat the disease are turning out to be insufficient, even when combined with local health workers and a collection of NGOs. The organization has called the scale of the outbreak "unprecedented."

The launch will officially take place tomorrow in Guinea, one of the countries that has been hit the hardest by Ebola. An Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak Response Plan in West Africa has already been developed. The plan calls for several hundred additional workers, primarily "clinical doctors and nurses, epidemiologists, social mobilization experts, logisticians and data managers." Their goal will be two-fold: strengthen surveillance and response capabilities in surrounding countries to limit the spread of the virus and cut down on transmission in affected areas by scaling up existing outbreak control measures.

Ebola is part of a family of viruses that causes what are termed "hemorrhagic fevers." The results are exactly what the name implies: failure of blood vessel integrity and blood clotting, leading to widespread internal and external bleeding. Since the virus is present in these fluids, the bleeding puts anyone who comes in contact with a symptomatic individual or the body of anyone killed by Ebola at risk of infection. Health care workers can easily become infected during routine care.