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Ebola Update - Noon Briefing (18 November 2014)

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United Nations - Ebola Update by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General at the Daily Noon Briefing at UN Headquarters in New York (18 November 2014).
(Update)
Our regular update on Ebola: the World Health Organization says that as of today, Mali has officially reported a total of 6 cases of Ebola, with 5 deaths.
WHO is working closely with the Government of Mali to keep the Ebola outbreak from spreading. After intense tracing and monitoring of contacts of the first case, first case which was as you will recall a little girl, all 118 contacts have now passed through the 21-day incubation period without developing symptoms.
The virus was almost certainly re-introduced into Mali by a 70-year-old Grand Imam who fell ill in Guinea and died in Mali on 27 October.
WHO is currently assisting the Government of Mali to identify all potential chains of transmission, monitor contacts, and prevent the outbreak from growing larger. To date, 554 contacts have been identified and nearly all have been placed under surveillance.
The Ministry of Health, supported by WHO, has augmented the number of staff engaged in contact tracing by drawing on polio surveillance teams and using local medical students with training in epidemiology.
The country is also ramping up its capacity to perform exit screening at the Bamako airport.
As the successful experiences in Senegal and Nigeria show, aggressive contact tracing, which seeks to find and break every chain of transmission, immediately after an imported case can hold the number of additional cases to very small numbers and support a rapid end to the outbreak.
Meanwhile, UNICEF also intensified its emergency response to Ebola in Mali, increasing food and water delivery, and providing support on hygiene and sanitation. UNICEF is bringing additional support to local clinics, particularly in the area close to the frontier with Guinea.
And the Head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, Anthony Banbury, is today in Bamako to consult with national authorities and partners on the ground.
Also on Ebola, the World Health Organization stressed today that efforts to contain the outbreak are currently hampered by slow and complex diagnostic tests that impose a number of additional logistical challenges.
Therefore, WHO has launched two urgent initiatives to stimulate diagnostic innovation and expedite the delivery of better and faster tests to West Africa; one aims to minimize the barriers faced by diagnostic companies to develop and deploy their tests, the second comes with the establishment of an emergency quality assessment mechanism.
We have more from WHO on their efforts.
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