UN official tells UN Security Council that Ebola is “winning the race”

The death of Thomas Eric Duncan and reports that two of his attending nurses tested positive for the Ebola Virus has Americans paying attention to the seriousness of a possible pandemic on North American soil. The nurse who should have know that she was at high risk from exposure, jumped on a commercial plane and flew to visit family in Ohio.

CNN reports,

Amber Vinson, 29, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. She was confirmed to have Ebola overnight. Now, she will be transferred from the Dallas hospital to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, which has successfully treated two other patients.

The other nurse who contracted the virus is 26-year-old Nina Pham, who was diagnosed Sunday — a day before Vinson got on the plane. Pham is reported to be in stable condition at the Dallas hospital.

UN official Anthony Banbury recently told the UN Security Council that the Ebola pandemic killing thousands in West African countries is “winning the race”.

AllAfrica reports,

The Ebola outbreak is “winning the race” against attempts to contain it, the head of the United Nations mission working to stop the deadly virus warned the Security Council today as he urged the international community to help expand on-the-ground efforts across the affected nations in West Africa.

In his briefing, Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), told the 15-nation Council that he is “deeply worried” that the steps implemented by the international community are “not nearly enough” to halt the advance of the fatal disease.

“Ebola got a head start on us,” he said. “It is far ahead of us, it is running faster than us, and it is winning the race. If Ebola wins, we the peoples of the United Nations lose so very much… ,” he said.

“We either stop Ebola now or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan,” Mr. Banbury told the Council via video link from the operation’s headquarters in Ghana.

In its most recent situation report on the disease, the UN World Health Organization (WHO), which is leading the wider UN response, reported 8,376 cases and 4,024 deaths from Ebola based on information provided by the Ministries of Health of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, whose UN delegations were represented at today’s Security Council briefing.