Aid agency Oxfam said Ebola could become the “definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation,” as US President Barack Obama urged against “hysteria” in the face of the growing crisis.
Oxfam, which works in the two worst-hit countries — Liberia and Sierra Leone — on Saturday called for more troops, funding and medical staff to be sent to tackle the west African epicenter of the epidemic.
Oxfam chief executive Mark Goldring said that the world was “in the eye of a storm.”
“We cannot allow Ebola to immobilize us in fear, but... countries that have failed to commit troops, doctors and enough funding are in danger of costing lives,” he said.
The worst-ever outbreak of the deadly virus has so far killed more than 4,500 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but isolated cases have now begun to appear in Europe and the US.
“The Ebola crisis could become the definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation,” a spokesperson for the British-based charity said as it appealed for EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg today to do more.
Obama’s warning about hysteria came a day after the World Bank said the battle against the disease was being lost and as the US president named an “Ebola czar” to coordinate Washington’s response.
Sierra Leonean Minister of Defense and National Security Alfred Paolo Conteh was put in charge of the nation’s fight against the disease as the death toll there rose to 1,200.
In a statement, Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma said the defense minister would “with immediate effect” head a new national Ebola response center.
A global UN appeal for nearly US$1 billion to fight the spread of the disease has so far fallen short, but a spokesman told reporters more money was coming in daily.
Out of the US$988 million requested a month ago, the UN said on Saturday that US$385.9 million had already been given by a slew of governments and agencies, with a further US$225.8 million promised.
“It has been encouraging to see the amount and the speed with which these amounts have been committed,” UN humanitarian office spokesman Jens Laerke said.
The total was still some way off, Laerke said.
“Nobody is smiling in this crisis, so I am not going to go out and clap my hands and say everything is going fine, because it is not,” Laerke added.
As panic and Ebola scares spread worldwide, Obama called for patience and perspective.
“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. We have to be guided by the science,” Obama said.
Friday saw a number of false alarms in the US as fears grew, including at the Pentagon, where an entrance was closed after a woman vomited in a parking lot. US authorities later found no evidence that she had contracted Ebola.
Meanwhile, US media outlets reported on overzealous action taken by some worried communities, including a group of Mississippi parents who pulled their kids from school because the principal had recently traveled to Zambia — a southern African country far from the Ebola crisis in west Africa.
The US — where a Liberian man died from Ebola on Oct. 8 and two US nurses who treated him have tested positive — was not seeing an “outbreak” or “epidemic,” Obama stressed.
More “isolated” cases in the nation were possible, he said, “but we know how to wage this fight.”
The US president played down the idea of a ban on travel from west Africa.
“Trying to seal off an entire region of the world — if that were even possible — could actually make the situation worse,” he said.
Obama’s call for calm was in stark contrast to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, who on Friday said: “We are losing the battle.”
He blamed a lack of international solidarity in efforts to stem the epidemic.
“Certain countries are only worried about their own borders,” he told reporters in Paris, as leaders in Washington and beyond grapple for a coordinated response.
Airports in several countries were taking passengers’ temperatures in a bid to detect Ebola carriers, although experts have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the checks.
France on Saturday started carrying out health checks on Air France passengers arriving from Guinea, while a cabin crew union called for a halt to flights from Conakry altogether.
The US, Britain and Canada have already launched screenings at airports for passengers from Ebola-hit zones. The EU is reviewing the matter.
As of Tuesday last week, 4,555 people had died from Ebola out of a total of 9,216 cases registered in seven countries, the WHO said.
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