EU increases funding for Ebola in West Africa

The European Commission is allocating 300.000 euros to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to support the work of the Guinea Red Cross in preventing the Ebola virus from spreading.

This will enable Red Cross volunteers to be trained and protected while carrying out activities in communities where cases of Ebola have been reported. The funding was released in response to IFRC’s Emergency Appeal, launched on 7 April, and brings the total of Commission aid to fight the Ebola epidemic to 1.4 million euros.

These additional funds will help to ensure that all three priority actions are funded: the clinical management of cases, the epidemiological surveillance as well as the community outreach, a third and vital component in preventing the epidemic from spreading any further.

IFRC’s actions in the field of community outreach include the training of volunteers, the active tracing of cases, health promotion as well as psychosocial support for the patients, their families and the health staff. 400 volunteers have so far been mobilized by the Guinea Red Cross.

“It is important that the volunteers of the Guinea Red Cross are able to do their vital work in the best of circumstances. Going out into communities where fear and sometimes panic has taken root to ensure suspected cases are isolated, safe burial practices are respected and the necessary hygiene measures are taken requires a lot of tact and expertise,” Jean-Louis Mosser, health expert, European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department ECHO explained.

Last week, the Commission already increased its assistance with 600 000 euros to help Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) scale up interventions in the field of clinical management and the World Health Organization (WHO) carry out epidemiological surveillance while providing medical supplies, equipment and health personnel.

On 26 March, six European experts of the European Mobile Lab project (EMLab) for dangerous infectious diseases arrived in Gueckedou, Guinea, with a mobile laboratory unit that is now fully operational.

This is the first Ebola virus outbreak registered in the region. It was publicly announced by the Guinean Government on 22 March, following the French Institut Pasteur’s confirmation of Ebola virus in samples of cases initially thought to be Lassa fever, which is endemic in the region.

As of 16 April, 197 suspected cases including 122 deaths have been reported in Guinea and another 27 suspected cases in Liberia resulting in 13 deaths. First discovered in Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan in 1976, several outbreaks of this viral hemorrhagic fever have been reported in East and Central Africa, but not in West Africa.

Highly contagious, human to human transmission of Ebola occurs through simple contact with blood and bodily fluids of patients or deceased persons infected by the virus. No vaccine or treatment is yet available for this pathogen, one of the world’s most lethal with a case fatality rate of up to 90 percent.

The EMLab project is a European initiative funded by the EuropeAid Cooperation Office (Devco). It includes partners from Germany, Italy, France, Hungary, Switzerland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. As part of the international response to the current Ebola outbreak in Guinea, WHO and its Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) requested lab experts of the EMLab project to support the Ministry of Health of Guinea in viral hemorrhagic fever diagnostics.

The team of experts is composed of scientists from the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine (Germany), the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale per le Malattie Infettive L. Spallanzani (Italy) and the Laboratoire P4 – INSERM Jean Merieux (France) as well as four experts from Germany, France and Hungary.