Off the wire
• Major strike hits Turkey auto industry  • Chinese stock exchanges increasingly favored by tech IPOs  • New rules for China's jury system  • Update: Iran says not to give up security confidentiality for nuclear deal  • China reaffirms territorial claims in South China Sea  • Pakistan denies selling nukes to Saudi Arabia: Foreign Ministry  • SpaceX's cargo ship returns from Int'l Space Station  • Across China: In electronic era, paper books fuel buying craze  • Xi asks newspaper to spread China voices  • Xi's wife meets Australian students from Tasmania  
You are here: 　 Home

Health workers much more likely to contract Ebola: WHO report

Xinhua, May 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) released on Thursday a preliminary report detailing Ebola's impact on health workers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Covering the Jan. 1 2014 to March 31 2015 period, it is the first to investigate the causes of infection incurred by clinical staff, drivers, cleaners, burial teams and community-based workers.

"The impact of Ebola on health workers has been catastrophic, wide-ranging, and disproportionate," said WHO Director of Service Delivery and Safety Ed Kelley.

According to the preliminary figures and depending on their profession, health workers were between 21 and 32 times more likely to contract Ebola than people in the general adult population.

Nurses and nurse aides were most affected, with more than 50 percent of the reported 815 confirmed and probably cases registered by individuals working in this profession.

Doctors and medical students were also affected (12 percent), as well as laboratory workers and trade and elementary workers (7 percent each).

Two thirds of those health workers who contracted the virus died.

While outlining these tragic trends, Kelley also stated that "the main message behind the report is a health-systems issue."

According to WHO, a lack of infection prevention and control standards, inadequate working conditions and triage and isolation practises engendered high contraction and fatality rates.

With lessons hard learnt, and the Ebola virus under control in Liberia, WHO's first priority is to get to zero cases in all three of the affected countries before the arrival of the rainy season.

Having done this, experts consider the reopening of health-centres and services and the construction of resilient health systems as crucial for both medium-term and long-term objectives.

This is especially important as 28 other countries, including Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Niger, Sudan and Angola have similarly fragile health systems.

"WHO is committed to helping build resilience, we must not wait for a fire to flare up, put it out, and then fail to fireproof the building," said WHO Director of Ethics and Social Determinants of Health Ruediger Krech.

Krech highlighted the importance of building health systems which can absorb shocks, while introducing healthcare workers in villages with the necessary tools, medicine and knowledge to treat patients or refer them to higher authorities when necessary.

The report also stresses the importance of protecting health workers when health systems are strained by such wide-spread epidemics, and places health worker protection and support at the heart of emergency responses. Endit