Ebola Update - Daily Noon Briefing (6 November 2014)

Ebola Update by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General at the Daily Noon Briefing at UN Headquarters in New York (6 November 2014).
And on Ebola, the World Health Organization issued yesterday an update on Ebola cases. It reports a total of 13,042 cases and 4,818 deaths.
At the country level, the weekly incidence appears to be stable in Guinea. In Sierra Leone the weekly incidence continues to rise, while in Liberia it appears to be declining.
However, in all three countries, the World Health Organization stresses that Ebola transmission remains persistent and widespread, particularly in the capital cities, and that cases and deaths continue to be under-reported in this outbreak.
It is also critical to remember what Dr Salama from UNICEF told you last week, which is that we need to consider the three countries as one block.
According to WHO, of the planned 4,707 beds needed in Ebola Treatment Centres, 22% are currently in operation. The establishment of more beds is in part held back by challenges in finding sufficient numbers of foreign medical teams to operate the Centres.
Guinea currently has two foreign medical teams operating Ebola Treatment Centres, and is in need of at least five more. Liberia has three foreign medical teams and is in need of 13 more, and Sierra Leone has five teams, with 10 more being deployed.
Still on Ebola, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Ms. Ertharin Cousin, just concluded a three-day visit to Sierra Leone.
She said that the international community has made a lot of progress in meeting the needs of the victims of this crisis but that we still need to scale up the response, to get better and to perform faster.
To date, the World Food Programme has provided food assistance to 1.3 million people and is ramping up services to the humanitarian effort in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Besides, WFP is also providing crucial transport and logistics support, particularly to medical partners, building Ebola Treatment Centres and storage hubs for the entire humanitarian community, in both capital cities and remote areas of the countries.
Global Ebola Response Website: