UNSC: 'dramatically expand' Ebola response

The UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a statement warning that the world's response to Ebola "has failed to date to adequately address the magnitude of the outbreak and its effects."

The council also urged all member states and aid organizations to "accelerate and dramatically expand the provision of resources and financial and material assistance" to West Africa, where the vast majority of Ebola cases and deaths have been recorded. The UN called for mobile laboratories, field hospitals, trained clinical personnel, therapies, and protective gear for carers.

The council statement also strongly urged airlines and shipping companies to maintain trade and transport links to the countries, "while applying appropriate public health protocols." The statement also expressed concerns about the effects of trade and travel restrictions, warning against "acts of discrimination against the nationals of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone," the three worst-hit countries.

Representatives of the three countries have repeatedly protested their growing isolation as a costly measure that is unlikely to stop the disease's spread. Except for Mali, all neighboring countries have closed - or at least tried to close - their land borders; a number of airlines have stopped flights to the region.

Teleconference seeks improved coordination

According to World Health Organization estimates, more than 4,400 people have been killed in this year's Ebola outbreak, the worst on record.

For the first time in response to a public health crisis, the UN has set up a special mission to combat the spread of Ebola, headed by Anthony Banbury. "Ebola got a head start on us, is far ahead of us, is running faster than us, and is winning the race," Banbury said on Tuesday.

Political leaders from France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US on Wednesday held a conference call to discuss their response to Ebola, agreeing on the need for an intensified response during a 75-minute discussion.

"Leaders agreed that this was the most serious international public health emergency in recent years and that the international community needed to do much more and faster to halt the rise of the disease in the region," a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement. "Each leader set out what they are doing to help the countries affected and then discussions focused on how to improve coordination of the international effort."

Obama, meanwhile, has been scrambling to deal with the fallout of two healthcare workers at a Texas hospital contracting Ebola from patients flown into the country. Both had treated the same patient at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. The second, it emerged on Wednesday, had taken a domestic flight on a commercial airliner a day before the positive test. She had flown from Cleveland, Ohio to Dallas Fort-Worth on Monday with Frontier Airlines, officials said.

Obama canceled planned Democrat party engagements in New Jersey and Connecticut - ahead of the November 4 "midterm" elections to choose the lower chamber of Congress, the House of Representatives, and one-third of the Senators in the upper house - to instead host an emergency government meeting.

According to his spokesman Josh Earnest, this was an example of "the kind of tenacious, adaptive response that's required."

msh/bw (AFP, dpa, Reuters)