100 tons of supplies to fight Ebola sent to West Africa

Humanitarian groups have sent nearly $6 million in medical supplies to West Africa to help in the fight against Ebola.

The airlift left Saturday from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on a chartered Boeing 747 airplane bound for communities in Liberia and Sierra Leone, two of the countries hardest hit in the Ebola outbreak.

The 100 tons of supplies include gloves, masks, gowns, goggles, saline, antibiotics, oral rehydration solution and pain killers. Ebola can cause excruciating pain, as well as severe vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding, making it important to offer pain relief and to rehydrate patients as quickly as possible.

"We must do all we can to reduce further the human tragedy caused by this deadly outbreak and help communities avoid an even deeper setback than has occurred already," said Chief Executive Thomas Tighe of Direct Relief, which helped organize the airlift.

Basic medical supplies are in short supply in countries where Ebola has hit. Many hospitals lack even running water and soap, according to officials from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who testified about the epidemic on Capitol Hill this past week.

Charities contributing to the airlift include the Clinton Foundation, Direct Relief, Last Mile Health, Africare and the Wellbody Alliance.

The United Nations has said that controlling the epidemic will require the world to increase its efforts twentyfold and to spend $1 billion in the next six months. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to launch a medical mission to West Africa to fight Ebola, and President Obama announced that he is sending 3,000 American troops.

That makes a major change in the world's response to the 6-month-old epidemic.

Initially, many countries dealt with the fear of contagion by isolating themselves from West Africa — closing borders, canceling airline service, pulling ships back from ports — which has caused economic and social unrest, with high unemployment and rising food prices. The USA's U.N. Ambassador, Samantha Power, told the security council Thursday that the world has to stop pulling away from West Africa and instead rush in with aid.

The outbreak has grown to 5,335 cases in five countries — Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal — with 2,622 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. These numbers are likely far short of the real total because many cases have gone unreported, he World Health Organization said.

If the outbreak isn't stopped soon, it could spread to other countries and last for years, according to CDC officials.

World leaders are worried that the epidemic now is growing at an exponential rate. Half of Ebola cases were diagnosed in just the past three weeks, leading researchers at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Treatment Center to predict that cases could number as many as 10,000 by this coming Wednesday.

About half of victims die from the illness. No treatments or vaccines have been approved, but researchers now are rushing experimental therapies into early human trials.

Some of these therapies languished in early stages of development for years because of a lack of interest and financial backing by drug companies.

Probable and confirmed Ebola cases

The Ebola outbreak now raging in West Africa is the largest since the virus was first discovered in 1976, according to the World Health Organization. Here is where it has been reported as of Tuesday.

Source: World Health Organization