Daily Video September 26, 2014
President Obama told world leaders at the United National General Assembly that the international community is “not moving fast enough” to contain the Ebola epidemic.
The current outbreak of Ebola emerged in rural Guinea in March. It quickly spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and Nigeria, killing 2,900 people out of more than 6,200 confirmed cases, with a case fatality rate of about 50 percent. It spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, and many have contracted the virus while caring for sick family members or performing funeral rites for victims. There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, though a vaccine is currently in development.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has called for a swift international response to help curb the virus, with a potential price tag of $1 billion. Without intervention, the number of cases could reach 1.4 million in Liberia and Sierra Leone by the end of Jan. 2015, according to the CDC.
Only 18 percent of Liberians with Ebola are currently in hospitals or quarantined. In Sierra Leone, the government has quarantined one-third of the country in an effort to contain the virus. The World Health Organization has said that Liberia alone needs 1,500 additional beds for Ebola patients.
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