Pretoria –Cabinet has expressed its appreciation for the team of South African medical experts, who are helping to fight the spread of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), in West Africa.
“This team of highly trained specialists is equipped with a mobile laboratory and has been there for the past two weeks assisting to diagnose the disease throughout that region,” said Minister in the Presidency responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe.
He was speaking on Thursday during a post-Cabinet media briefing in Cape Town.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases deployed a specialist team in response to the on-going EVD Outbreak to Sierra Leone on 16 August 2014.
The deployment is in response to an extended call from the World Health Organisation, Global Outbreak Alert Response Network (WHO/GOARN) in aid of the unprecedented outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.
Various African countries including Nigeria, Botswana, Malawi, Gambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Africa have extended support to Ebola affected countries, such as direct funding, medical personnel and clinics to compliment on-going African Union (AU) and international efforts.
The latest number of EVD cases in affected countries Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, stands at 3 069, with over 1 552 deaths, making this the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. An unprecedented number of health care workers have also been infected and died due to this outbreak.
Meanwhile, the AU Executive Council has announced that it will hold an emergency meeting on Ebola in Addis Ababa on 8 September.
It said the meeting will adopt a common position and define appropriate strategies to enable Africa to effectively combat the Ebola epidemic.
“The council’s emergency meeting has been necessitated by the need to have a common understanding of the EVD and current status of the response and to come up with a collective continental approach, taking into account the socio-political and economic impact of the disease,” said the AU in a statement on Wednesday. – SAnews.gov.za
