Obama urges against Ebola ‘hysteria’ and insists cases are ‘isolated’

THE President has called for an end to the panic over Ebola, while others say the outbreak could become “the definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation”. So, who’s right?

Barack Obama

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has urged against “hysteria” over Ebola, emphasising that the cases in the Western world are “isolated”.

His words came as Oxfam warned the outbreak could become “the definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation” and the World Bank said the fight against the virus was being lost.

“This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear — because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need,” the President said.

The death toll in the world's worst Ebola outbreak has passed 4500.

“We have to be guided by the science.”

But even members of Mr Obama’s administration do not seem to be on the same page, with John Kerry on Friday saying Ebola could become “a scourge like HIV or polio, that we will end up fighting, all of us, for decades”.

This outbreak of Ebola is the worst the world has seen, having killed more than 4500 people.

While most cases have appeared in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, there have now been several in Europe and the US.

I think #clipboardman should have worn protective gear. What's the harm in being cautious? Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/FYLxYXXSgM

— Anne McNamara (@AnneMcNamaraTV) October 16, 2014

There have now been several false alarms, including at the Pentagon, where an entrance was closed after a woman vomited in a car park. Authorities found no evidence that she had contracted Ebola.

Elsewhere, some have reported excessive panic over the virus, with parents in Mississippi pulling their children out of school because the principal had recently visited Zambia — a southern African country far from the affected areas.

An image of a woman dressed in a homemade Hazmat suit at Dulles International Airport outside Washington went viral on Friday.

There was also outrage on Twitter this week over a picture of a man not wearing a protective suit while escorting the second infected nurse to a plane.

The ABC reported that #clipboardman was present to assist those wearing the suits with their limited vision and mobility.

A first responder wears a full biohazard suit while spraying disinfectant on the railing at a Dallas station after a woman with Ebola-like symptoms fell ill.

A Texas cruise ship reportedly turned back from Mexico yesterday because a woman who worked at the Dallas hospital where a man died of Ebola had isolated herself.

She is said to have no symptoms of the disease 20 days after she came into contact with a sample, reported the UK Telegraph. People are considered out of danger after 21 days.

After she locked herself in her room, the crew requested for her to be flown back to the US from Belize — but the Belize government refused to let her disembark, saying that “when even the smallest doubt remains, we will ensure the health and safety of the Belizean people”.

The ship then sailed on to Mexico, but was refused entry into the port at Cozumel, and has now headed back to the US.

Mr Obama conceded that further “isolated” cases in the US were possible, but insisted that the US was not seeing an “epidemic” or even an “outbreak.”

A Liberian health worker holds a baby infected with the Ebola virus at the NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres Ebola treatment centre in Monrovia.

“We know how to wage this fight,” he added.

He resisted calls for a travel ban on west Africa, saying: “Trying to seal off an entire region of the world — if that were even possible — could actually make the situation worse.”

Airports in several countries have begun taking passengers’ temperatures in a bid to detect Ebola carriers, although experts have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the checks.

A 40-year-old passenger was taken to a Paris hospital with a suspected fever but officials later said she was not suffering from vomiting or diarrhoea.

Meanwhile, a woman was taken to a military hospital close to Paris yesterday suffering from abdominal pain and fever, but there was no confirmation of her condition.