With the World Health
Organization announcing Wednesday that 932 deaths had been reported or
confirmed as a result of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Saudi Arabia joined
the list of countries with suspected cases.
"This is the biggest and
most complex Ebola outbreak in history," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
Nearly all of those
deaths have been in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where more than
1,700 cases have been reported, according to WHO. The agency said 108
new cases were reported between Saturday and Monday in those countries
and Nigeria.
Liberian President Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf has declared a state of emergency for 90 days because of
the deadly outbreak, her office announced Wednesday.
The scope and scale of the epidemic, the virulence and deadliness of the
virus now exceed the capacity and statutory responsibility of any one
government agency or ministry," she said in a written statement. "The
government and people of Liberia require extraordinary measures for the
very survival of our state and for the protection of the lives of our
people."
She said Ebola is a "clear and present danger."
Concerns about the spread
of the deadly virus escalated with Saudi Arabia reporting that a man
died, apparently of the virus, after a trip to Sierra Leone, and Nigeria
reported that a nurse died after treating someone believed to have
contracted Ebola in Liberia.
WHO did not immediately confirm the deaths, and its count of Ebola cases does not include the two.
The Saudi man died Wednesday at a specialized hospital in Jeddah, the Saudi Ministry of Health said.
He had been in intensive
care since late Monday "after exhibiting symptoms of viral hemorrhagic
fever following a business trip to Sierra Leone," the ministry said in a
statement.
The nurse in Nigeria had
helped care for Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American man, who died in
Nigeria after traveling there from Liberia, Nigeria's Ministry of Health
said Wednesday.Source: CNN
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