Two American nurses were declared cured of Ebola and one -- Dallas-based Nina Pham -- hugged President Barack Obama at the White House to prove it.
But the states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantine for medics who had treated victims of the disease in West Africa.
Steps include mandatory quarantine 21 days of any individual who has had direct contact with an Ebola patient while in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone, including medics who treated Ebola patients.
The new measures were ordered by state governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie on Friday, the day after an American doctor tested positive for Ebola one week after returning from working in hard-hit Guinea.
Craig Spencer, 33, was in said to be in stable condition in isolation at New York's Bellevue Hospital Center, receiving treatment for the illness which has killed nearly 4,900 people -- most of them in West Africa.
Europe's main stock markets fell on Friday over concerns about New York's first case, in a doctor who tested positive after returning from treating sufferers in Guinea, one of the countries at the epicentre of the world's worst outbreak of the disease.
The search for an effective vaccine to fight the disease took on fresh urgency as the WHO said several hundred thousand doses could be available in the "first half" of 2015.
"All is being put in place to start efficacy tests in the affected countries as early as December," WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny said.
Kieny's comments came after closed-door talks to try to find a vaccine to beat a disease that has ravaged the west African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
'Real-world' tests
Experts are pinning their hopes on the experimental vaccine rVSV, with doses arriving in Geneva for a new round of trials, and ChAd3, made by Britain's GlaxoSmithKline.
Five other potential vaccines are in the pipeline.
Whichever proves effective in trials, WHO hopes to send huge numbers of doses to Africa for "real-world" tests.
"The pharmaceutical companies developing all these vaccines are committing to ramping up the production capacity to millions of doses to be available in 2015," said Kieny.
There is currently no licensed cure for Ebola, which is transmitted through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or someone who has died from the disease.
New York's mayor said America's biggest city was fully equipped to handle Ebola as authorities moved to shut down fears of the virus spreading.
Spencer became the first American case of the virus outside Texas.
He was rushed to a Manhattan hospital Thursday with fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, a week after returning from treating Ebola sufferers in Guinea with the charity Doctors Without Borders.
His fiancee and two of his friends are in quarantine but appear healthy, officials said.
"There is no cause for alarm," Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference. "New Yorkers need to understand the situation is being handled and handled well."
There was better news when Pham -- the first US healthcare worker to contract Ebola -- was declared free of the virus.
"I am on my way back to recovery even as I reflect on how many others have not been so fortunate," Pham said before meeting Obama.
She and her nursing colleague Amber Vinson, who was also given the all-clear, caught the disease while treating a Liberian Ebola sufferer, Thomas Eric Duncan, at a Dallas hospital. He later died.
First death in Mali
But in the West African nation of Mali, a two-year-old girl who recently returned from a trip to neighbouring Guinea with her grandmother died from the virus.
The toddler's condition had shown signs of improvement earlier, but a source in the prime minister's office said she had succumbed to the virus in the western region of Kayes.
The Malian government advised residents to avoid all non-vital travel to affected areas.
The WHO said the Malian authorities were tracing everyone who had contact with the girl and her grandmother and 43 people had been placed under observation.
In Ivory Coast, which has escaped Ebola until now, a desperate search was on for a health worker from Guinea who may have fled across the border after having contact with a patient who died of the disease.
The man had still not been tracked down after 48 hours late Friday.
Meanwhile, European Union leaders agreed to boost aid to combat Ebola in west Africa to one billion euros ($1.3 billion).
African countries have pledged to send more than 1,000 health workers to the most severely-hit countries.
With almost 10,000 people now infected, AU chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the regional bloc was responding to an urgent need for reinforcements.
WHO under fire over Ebola response
Staff of Médecins sans frontière’ carry the body of a person killed by Ebola at a treatment centre in Guinea. PHOTO BY AFP
By Agencies
Posted Saturday, October 25 2014 at 01:00
Posted Saturday, October 25 2014 at 01:00
In Summary
The disease has killed 4,877 people.Most of the victims died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Geneva- The World Health Organisation (WHO) is the world’s biggest and most important health body.
Geneva- The World Health Organisation (WHO) is the world’s biggest and most important health body.
There is no question that it has had some major
successes: it has ensured that millions of children worldwide are free
from polio.
It runs programmes aimed at combating HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis, among others.
It runs programmes aimed at combating HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis, among others.
But when it comes to a sudden new health threat, or a danger in an unexpected region, many say the WHO does not really deliver.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic is, it is claimed, a case in point.
When the first cases of a new flu virus were reported in Mexico City, the WHO had already been preparing for a global influenza pandemic with many experts suggesting it could be as devastating as the post-World War One Spanish flu.
When the first cases of a new flu virus were reported in Mexico City, the WHO had already been preparing for a global influenza pandemic with many experts suggesting it could be as devastating as the post-World War One Spanish flu.
There were reasons for the fears. Medical historians knew that a serious flu pandemic could be expected once in a generation.
Furthermore the H1N1 “bird flu” virus did have a
high mortality rate, although it had not shown much ability to spread
from human to human.
So by 2009 the WHO had a huge “pandemic preparedness” plan, and when swine flu appeared, it swung into action.
So by 2009 the WHO had a huge “pandemic preparedness” plan, and when swine flu appeared, it swung into action.
A global pandemic was declared and pharmaceutical
companies fast-tracked billions of doses of a new vaccine. Many
countries diverted their public health budgets to buy a dose for every
single member of the population.
The problem was, swine flu was not the major global health threat the WHO had been preparing for.
The problem was, swine flu was not the major global health threat the WHO had been preparing for.
“What we experienced in Mexico City was a very
mild flu which did not kill more than usual,” said German epidemiologist
Wolfgang Wodarg in 2010.
But the voices raising doubts went largely unheard. The WHO’s pandemic preparedness had been long in the planning and, once up and running, seemed unstoppable.
But the voices raising doubts went largely unheard. The WHO’s pandemic preparedness had been long in the planning and, once up and running, seemed unstoppable.
And the very planning that went into preparing for
an influenza pandemic seems to have worked against WHO during West
Africa’s Ebola outbreak.
Although a flu pandemic was expected, Ebola was most definitely not expected in Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone. The virus had never been seen in West Africa before.
Although a flu pandemic was expected, Ebola was most definitely not expected in Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone. The virus had never been seen in West Africa before.
So when the first cases were reported in March
there was no big WHO machine ready to roll. West Africa’s Ebola outbreak
began in Guinea last December and seems to have gone almost unnoticed
for three months.
“Nobody knew that Ebola would be possible in such
parts of Africa,” said Dr Isabelle Nuttall, the WHO’s director of global
capacities, alert and response.
“The speed of reaction was initially determined by the fact that the disease was not known to occur in this part of Africa,” she added.
“The speed of reaction was initially determined by the fact that the disease was not known to occur in this part of Africa,” she added.
But even if the WHO did not expect Ebola in West
Africa, it did receive information, and warnings, from medical experts
on the ground.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)
said on March 31 that Guinea was facing “an epidemic of a magnitude
never before seen in terms of the distribution of cases in the country”.
MSF warned that the geographic spread of the cases indicated the epidemic would be very difficult to contain.
But just one day later, on April 1, the WHO’s
senior communications officer, Mr Gregory Hartl, suggested that MSF was
scaremongering.
“We need to be very careful about how we characterise something which is up until now an outbreak with sporadic cases. What we are dealing with is an outbreak of limited geographic area and only a few chains of transmission,” she said.
For the following three months, the WHO continued with that interpretation. Meanwhile media attempting to report the obviously spreading epidemic faced major hurdles.
The WHO’s regional headquarters in Africa issued irregular online statements as to new cases and death tolls, which were often not confirmed by WHO headquarters in Geneva for several days.
Calls to communications officers went unanswered, their voicemail boxes were full.
Only in June did the WHO call a meeting of its Global Outbreak Alert committee, and only then, it seems, did WHO Director General Margaret Chan take a long hard look at the situation and said she was “very unhappy” at what she had discovered.
Despite her dissatisfaction, it still took the WHO until August to declare Ebola to be a health emergency.
Today, although Nigeria has just been declared Ebola free, the epidemic is still raging in Guinea, where it began, in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
WHO admits there is no sign it is even close to being brought under control and almost 10 months after it first began this outbreak has claimed at least 4,877 lives - more than three times the death toll from previous outbreaks put together.
“We need to be very careful about how we characterise something which is up until now an outbreak with sporadic cases. What we are dealing with is an outbreak of limited geographic area and only a few chains of transmission,” she said.
For the following three months, the WHO continued with that interpretation. Meanwhile media attempting to report the obviously spreading epidemic faced major hurdles.
The WHO’s regional headquarters in Africa issued irregular online statements as to new cases and death tolls, which were often not confirmed by WHO headquarters in Geneva for several days.
Calls to communications officers went unanswered, their voicemail boxes were full.
Only in June did the WHO call a meeting of its Global Outbreak Alert committee, and only then, it seems, did WHO Director General Margaret Chan take a long hard look at the situation and said she was “very unhappy” at what she had discovered.
Despite her dissatisfaction, it still took the WHO until August to declare Ebola to be a health emergency.
Today, although Nigeria has just been declared Ebola free, the epidemic is still raging in Guinea, where it began, in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
WHO admits there is no sign it is even close to being brought under control and almost 10 months after it first began this outbreak has claimed at least 4,877 lives - more than three times the death toll from previous outbreaks put together.
