GENEVA / EBOLA PRESSER

Dr. Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General in charge of the Ebola response for the World Health Organization (WHO) cautioned reporters that the targets set for today were important milestones, but “we have got to get to 100 percent safe burials, 100 percent isolation and then 100 percent of cases being found, contacts being traced” in order to stop the outbreak. WHO

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:40
• Production Date: 1 December 2014
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION - WHO
• Subject Topical: DISEASE PREVENTION; DISEASE CONTROL; DISEASES; EBOLA
• Geographic Subject: WEST AFRICA
• MAMS Id: 1255449

Description

STORY: GENEVA / EBOLA PRESSER
TRT: 2.40
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 1 DECEMBER 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, conference room and dais
2. Med shot, camera person
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director General:
“In all three countries, it’s clear now that more than 70 percent of the Ebola deaths that we know about are buried safely. And this is because in the past sixty days the number of safe burials teams has more than doubled from probably less than a 100 or thereabouts, to nearly 200, or just over, I think we are squeaking in at 202.”
4. Med shot, cameras
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director General:
“We now believe that two of the three countries, Liberia and Guinea are currently treating more than 70 percent of the reported cases, and in Sierra Leone they are probably achieving that in most of the country with the exception being in the Western part where they are currently dealing with real escalating disease.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director General:
“The big question of two months ago, and that was, can you close that yawning gap between the amount of disease and the response capacity, I believe that has been answered definitely, with the international and national community level will is there, and the investments are there, very definitely you can catch up with Ebola even on this scale, and that is a very, very important message and it is a very, very new piece of information.”
8. Med shot, journalist
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director General:
“Just because you can catch up with the virus and begin isolating all of those cases, it doesn’t mean you are automatically going to get to zero. That requires additional measures that have to be brought into place as we go forward.”
10. Wide shot, conference room and dais
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director General:
“Safe burials alone are not enough to slow the epidemic, to take the heat out of it, so that you can catch up to it. Really only in Liberia, and in parts of Sierra Leone and parts of Guinea where we have had safe burials plus the treatment and isolation capacity have we been able to catch up with the virus in order to slow it down. So you really need both these pieces to work and where you see only one or the other it won’t slow this epidemic down.”
12. Close up, reporter’s laptop computer
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director General:
“We have got to get to 100 percent safe burials, 100 percent isolation and then 100 percent of cases being found, contacts being traced, that is how you stop Ebola and we will not be able to stop this until that investment is complete. “
14. Pan right, conference room and dais

Storyline

Dr. Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General in charge of the Ebola response for the UN World Health Organization (WHO) told reporters today (1 Dec) in Geneva that in all three Ebola affected countries, “more than 70 percent of the Ebola deaths that we know about are buried safely.”

Aylward noted that the number of safe burials teams” has more than doubled” in the past sixty days.

The WHO official said that two of the three countries, Liberia and Guinea “are currently treating more than 70 percent of the reported cases” while in Sierra Leone “they are probably achieving that in most of the country with the exception being in the Western part where they are currently dealing with real escalating disease.”

Aylward said that when “the international and national community level will is there, and the investments are there, very definitely you can catch up with Ebola even on this scale,” but he cautioned that “just because you can catch up with the virus and begin isolating all of those cases, it doesn’t mean you are automatically going to get to zero. That requires additional measures that have to be brought into place as we go forward.”

Safe burials alone, he said “are not enough to slow the epidemic.”

The Assistant Director General pointed out that “only in Liberia, and in parts of Sierra Leone and parts of Guinea where we have had safe burials plus the treatment and isolation capacity have we been able to catch up with the virus in order to slow it down.”

He said “we have got to get to 100 percent safe burials, 100 percent isolation and then 100 percent of cases being found, contacts being traced, that is how you stop Ebola and we will not be able to stop this until that investment is complete. “

The United Nations had set targets for December 1 of 70 per cent of burials being done safely and 70 per cent of new cases being placed in treatment facility in order to end the outbreak, which the World Health Organization says has infected more than 16,000 people in 8 countries and claimed nearly 7,000 lives.