West Africa Ebola crisis hits tourism
Washington – The Presidents of three Ebola-stricken West African nations made urgent pleas for money, doctors and hospital beds and representatives of nations gathered for financial meetings promised more help.
“Our people are dying,” said President Ernest Bai Koroma. He described devastating effects of “this evil virus” — children made orphans, doctors and nurses dying, an overwhelmed medical system that can’t keep up.
Koroma spoke by video from Sierra Leone to an Ebola summit at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington. He said the world’s response hasn’t kept pace with the spread of Ebola, and “a tragedy unforeseen in modern times” is threatening everyone.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a 20-fold surge in international aid to fight the outbreak.
At the meeting here, President Alpha Conde of Guinea asked for money, supplies, medicine, equipment and training of health care workers.
“Our countries are in a very fragile situation,” Conde said through a translator. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia also appeared by videoconference to seek a rapid increase in aid.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim praised pledges from the United States and the European Commission to evacuate health care workers who become infected while responding to the crisis in West Africa, to encourage doctors and nurses to risk their lives to help.
Doctors, nurses and hospital staff are especially at risk because Ebola is spread through bodily fluids such as blood and vomit. More than 370 health care workers have been sickened or killed by the virus in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
A World Bank report this week estimated that the economic toll of the largest Ebola outbreak in history could reach $32.6 billion if the disease continues to spread in West Africa through next year. More than 3,800 people have died.
The United Nations has estimated it will cost nearly $1 billion to stop the Ebola outbreak according to AP .
According to Reuters , pestilence, cyclical droughts and floods, and the West Africa Ebola crisis have pushed hunger to record levels in Gambia, where 200,000 people need urgent food assistance.
Tourism is a significant source of income for the country, and even though Gambia has not seen cases of Ebola, the outbreak in the region has caused visitor numbers to plummet by 60 percent compared to last year, said Ade Mamonyane Lekoetje, the U.N. representative for Gambia.
Ebola – which has killed more than 3,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since March – has compounded Gambia’s woes. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say some 1.4 million are at risk in the region without immediate action.
Gambia says it has mounted surveillance along its borders, halted air travel from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and launched an aggressive Ebola awareness campaign.
The U.N. says that some 20 million people are at risk of hunger throughout the Sahel belt stretching from Senegal to Chad, but officials were surprised to see Gambia hit so hard.- AP/ Reuters
October 8 , 2014
