Ebola outbreak poses massive challenges, warns senior charity official

Ebola outbreak poses massive challenges, warns nurse1 hour agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJen SugdenandRumeana Jahangir,North WestBBCKate White, from Médecins Sans Frontières, flew from Manchester Airport as part of an international relief effortThe Ebola outbreak is posing massive challenges for medical aid organisations, a senior humanitarian official has said.Kate White, who is a program manager for the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and is flying out to the Democratic Republic of Congo, says she is "extremely concerned about the inability to get resources" to the country.Three Red Cross volunteers who died earlier this month were among the first known victims of DR Congo's Ebola outbreak, and likely caught it while managing dead bodies.The outbreak has resulted in more than 200 suspected deaths and more than 850 suspected cases.White, who flew from Manchester Airport on Sunday as part of an international relief effort, said: "It really reinforces the need to make sure that we have all of the protective measures in place."The World Health Organization (WHO) recently said the disease may be spreading faster than originally thought and have declared a public health emergency of international concern.There is no approved vaccine for this outbreak, however experimental ones are in development.There are also no drugs that target it, making the illness harder to treat.EPAThe virus is believed to have led to the deaths of more than 200 people since AprilWhite, from York, who has worked on previous Ebola epidemics in Africa, said: "In terms of how many years we have been seeing these outbreaks for and we still don't have comprehensive medical countermeasures... [treatment, vaccines, diagnostic testing that can be rolled out rapidly] says something about the state of the world right now."She added she was also concerned about the impact of closing airspace on transporting healthcare workers and resources to affected...