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Tuesday, August 26, 2014

The medical situation in Monrovia blemish "catastrophic" and fears the worst is yet to come

They get sick and die in taxi door center "

José Naranjo Dakar 26 AGO 2014 - 19:43 CEST1
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Lindis Hurum with Brett Adamson, MSF. / John Moore (Getty Images)


"The situation in Monrovia is totally out of control, it is very serious, catastrophic," says Hurum Lindis, coordinator of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Liberia. "Every day gets worse every day the news is worse and sincerely believe that the worst is yet to come true," he adds. "We are facing an epidemic of a scale never seen before and in this city of one million people the disease is everywhere, in every neighborhood. This requires implementing a strategy that does not know, requires coordination and means that we have not seen anywhere. "
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It takes two months to face the Ebola outbreak and has extensive emergency experience in the field, but what he saw excels all. "We have launched the largest center of isolation for sick Ebola that has ever been created, with capacity for one hundred patients, but we are overwhelmed. We see people get sick and die in a taxi at the door of our hospital, "says Hurum. "We need to address this problem like a tsunami or an earthquake, we only run after an epidemic that goes faster than us and do not see the resources anywhere. The government does what he can, he tries, but his health system is very fragile, unable to respond. "

Admits to feeling exhausted after 60 days fighting a giant and is waiting to return to his native Norway, but virtually all companies have canceled their flights. "We're seeing the reaction of the international community has been panic, trying to isolate this part of the world to prevent Ebola reach Europe or the USA. That is not the solution, we should use that energy to come here and help isolate completely because if this area is going to be even worse. At MSF we have crossed alarmist, but I'm being realistic. "

     We can not isolate these people and let die

A serious problem is that it is not by tracking cases and contacts. There is not even reliable figures. "We are absolutely certain that there are more cases and more deaths than the official figures say," he says. And we must add the problem of public safety: keep thousands of people in quarantine, and the neighborhood of West Point, where 70,000 people have been left within a cordon sanitaire. "This is not just a problem of Ebola is a real humanitarian crisis. We are in a big city where in normal times there is some crime, but now the risk of violence is high. Prices rise, schools are closed, there are areas where people can not move. We will see terrible things we've never seen before, "Hurum forward.

"There must be an answer and international agencies, are almost alone against this," he concludes. "We need doctors, nurses, skilled people, this is Ebola and there is a risk, but it is affordable, you can afford. We can not isolate these people and let die. It takes coordination that has not existed until now. I am very glad that David Nabarro [UN coordinator to the epidemic] is come this weekend, but we need all these resources are already talking implement now without further delay. "  http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/08/26/actualidad/1409074987_694884.html