The head of the United Nations team fighting Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, Anthony Banbury, has revealed that the deadly Ebola outbreak will be ended this year.
According to Banbury, the number of Ebola cases would be brought down to zero by the close of this year, but admitted that the end was “not close.”
“We are engaged in an epic battle,” the UN chief said.
This is coming after President Ernest Bai Korom of Sierra Leone asked his country to begin week-long fasting and prayer in bid to end Ebola scourge that has killed more than 2,700 people in the country.
The virus, the BBC reports, has killed nearly 8,000 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, where the disease started in December 2013.
In a New Year’s Day broadcast on Thursday, Koroma said the seven days of prayers and fasting would begin immediately. “Today I ask all to commit our actions to the grace, mercy and protection of God Almighty,” he said.
“I know what we are being asked to do is very difficult; we are a people that have built our humanity on hugging each other, on shaking hands, on caring for the sick and showing communal empathy by participating in funeral activities,” he said.
The worst outbreak on record of the virus is still spreading in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone, and the number of known cases globally has exceeded 20,000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.
The death toll from the outbreak, which has been mostly confined to West Africa, has risen to 7,905, the WHO said, following 317 fatalities recorded since it last issued figures on December 24.
Sierra Leone is the worst-hit country with more than 9,000 Ebola cases and the number of infections continue to grow. It accounted for 337 of 476 new laboratory-confirmed cases since December 24.
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been the hardest-hit countries in the epidemic.
In Sierra Leone, there are signs the increase of new cases has slowed, but the WHO says “the country’s west is now experiencing the most intense transmission of all the affected countries”.
