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WHO / EBOLA UPDATE
STORY: WHO / EBOLA UPDATE
TRT: 02:33
SOURCE: WHO / UNMEER
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 29 MARCH 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
29 MARCH 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, press conference
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Margaret Chan, Director-General World Health Organization (WHO):
“The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. However, a high level of vigilance and response capacity must be maintained to ensure the ability of the countries to prevent Ebola infections and to rapidly detect and respond to flare-ups in the future.”
FILE – UNMEER - 28 JANUARY 2014, SINJE, GRAND CAPE MOUNT, LIBERIA
3. Close up, doctor putting on rubber gloves
4. Various shots, health care workers wearing personal protective equipment
29 MARCH 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Margaret Chan, Director-General World Health Organization (WHO):
“Ebola response capacity in West Africa is strong. The three countries now have the world’s largest pool of experts in responding to Ebola. WHO anticipated further flare-ups. We have kept hundreds of our own experienced staff in the three countries, ready to contribute to the kind of emergency response needed to quickly interrupt transmission chains.”
FILE – UNMEER - 17 APRIL 2015, JIU, SIERRA LEONE
6. Close up, vaccine and syringe in container
7. Close up, nurse drawing vaccine into syringe
8. Med shot, nurse cleaning patient’s arm
9. Close up, vaccine being injected into patient’s arm
29 MARCH 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Margaret Chan, Director-General World Health Organization (WHO):
“Our tools are sharper. For the first time in any Ebola outbreak, response teams have access to vaccination as a powerful containment tool. In addition, with the number of cases now much smaller, our laboratory partners are able to sequence viruses from individual patients.”
FILE – WHO - DECEMBER 2014 SIERRA LEONE
11. Close up, Ebola medical clearance form
29 MARCH 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Bruce Aylward, WHO Executive Director:
“Immediately after discharge, a large proportion of men, probably 90 percent of men, may still be excreting or may still be able to detect virus from fragments in their semen. That number begins to decline rapidly and by 12 months it is probably at most one percent, one to two percent, that still remain positive, so it is a steady decline over time.”
FILE – WHO - DECEMBER 2014 SIERRA LEONE
13. Various shots, contact tracers interviewing suspected patients
The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, today said “the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. However, she noted, “a high level of vigilance and response capacity must be maintained to ensure the ability of the countries to prevent Ebola infections and to rapidly detect and respond to flare-ups in the future.”
The statement was made after the 9th meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) regarding the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa.
Chan said that the Ebola response capacity in West Africa is now “strong.” Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, she said, “now have the world’s largest pool of experts in responding to Ebola.”
The Director-General said that anticipating further flare-ups, WHO has kept “hundreds of our own experienced staff in the three countries, ready to contribute to the kind of emergency response needed to quickly interrupt transmission chains.”
The Committee noted that since its last meeting all three countries have met the criteria for confirming interruption of their original chains of Ebola virus transmission. Specifically, all three countries have now completed the 42 day observation period and additional 90 day enhanced surveillance period since their last case that was linked to the original chain of transmission twice tested negative. Guinea achieved this milestone on 27 March 2016.
Chan said “our tools are sharper. For the first time in any Ebola outbreak, response teams have access to vaccination as a powerful containment tool. In addition, with the number of cases now much smaller, our laboratory partners are able to sequence viruses from individual patients.”
The Committee observed that, as expected, new clusters of Ebola cases continue to occur due to reintroductions of virus as it is cleared from the survivor population, though at decreasing frequency. Twelve such clusters have been detected to date, the most recent of which was reported on 17 March 2016 in Guinea and is ongoing.
WHO’s Executive Director, Bruce Aylward, said “immediately after discharge, a large proportion of men, probably 90 percent of men, may still be excreting or may still be able to detect virus from fragments in their semen.”
That number, he said, “begins to decline rapidly and by 12 months it is probably at most one percent, one to two percent, that still remain positive, so it is a steady decline over time.”
The Committee was impressed that to date all of these clusters have been detected and responded to rapidly, limiting transmission to at most two generations of cases in the 11 clusters which have now been stopped.
The health agency dispatched a team of specialists to Guinea after new cases of Ebola were confirmed on 17 March, the first re-emergence of the deadly virus in the Western African country since its original outbreak was declared over on 29 December 2015.
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