Disease ‘poses threat to all humanity’

Ebola represents a threat to all humanity and an outbreak of the virus in five West African countries will likely spread to more, American officials warned.

“This is not an African disease. This is a virus that is a threat to all humanity,” said Gayle Smith, special assistant to US president Barack Obama and senior director at the National Security Council.

More than half of the 3,000 people sickened have died in the current ebola outbreak, which has hit Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal in West Africa.

The disease is spreading faster than health workers can keep up with it, said Tom Kenyon, of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, who recently visited the affected region.

But Kenyon said that the world has the tools to stop the outbreak; they just have to be put in place.

He said more treatment centres are currently being opened and that he is about to start negotiations with the African Union to send more health workers.

Many on the ground have said there aren’t enough protective suits for health workers, who have become infected in large numbers in this outbreak.

The US government is “ramping up significantly” donations of protective gear, said Smith.