President John Mahama
The President, John Mahama, has expressed shock at the level of isolation the three Ebola- stricken countries have been subjected to.
He said he was astonished when he witnessed the deserted airports in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea during his visit last week. “In my travel to those three countries…I was shocked to find the airports completely vacant,” he recalled.
President Mahama warned that the Ebola disease “knows no boundaries” therefore, “we cannot afford to let fear keep us away…we must erase the stigma.”
Addressing the 69th UN General Assembly meeting in the United States, President Mahama pointed out that it will be fatal to continue isolating the three affected nations because before the Ebola outbreak, they were struggling to rebuild their social and economic infrastructure after years of civil wars.
He remarked that “these countries were already operating with limited and insufficient number of treatment facilities and the shortage of qualified medical personnel.”
He therefore urged world leaders to desist from seeing the Ebola outbreak as an African problem because it is a world problem. The outbreak of the disease has caused 2,811 deaths and affected over 5,840 people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that Ebola infections could reach 20,000 by November if efforts to tackle the outbreak were not stepped up.
The United Nations (UN) Mission for Ebola Emergency Response has arrived in Ghana to help the fight against the disease in the West African sub-region.
But according to President Mahama, despite the gradual response from the international community, more needs to be done to prevent the further spread of the disease.
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