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Senior New Zealand health official joins Ebola fight in West Africa

Xinhua, January 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

A senior New Zealand public health official is going to West Africa as part of the government' s assistance in fighting Ebola, the Ministry of Health announced Thursday.

The ministry's director of emergency management, Charles Blanch, would be one of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Foreign Medical Team coordinators in Sierra Leone for three months, ensuring that offers of assistance from international teams matched the need on the ground.

"While the risk of Ebola arriving in New Zealand is very low, it is vital that we maintain vigilance at the border and across the health sector, and that the international response to the situation in West Africa doesn't lose momentum," New Zealand chief medical officer Dr Don Mackie said in a statement.

Since the outbreak began in West Africa a year ago, there had been more than 21,000 cases and more than 8,400 deaths.

New Zealand had provided 4 million NZ dollars (3.01 million U.S. dollars) towards the international Ebola response in West Africa and 1 million NZ dollars (752,389 U.S. dollars) for WHO's Ebola preparedness initiatives for the Pacific.

The government was also facilitating the deployment of up to 24 New Zealand personnel to an Australian-funded Ebola Treatment Center in Sierra Leone over a period of six to eight months. Endi