Ebola News, Update: UN Ebola Emergency Response Mission to Miss Dec. 1 Target

By Arvin Donguines, Christian Post Contributor Wednesday, November 26, 2014

The United Nations' Mission for Ebola Emergency Response admitted the agency couldn't fully meet its Dec. 1 target of containing the virus outbreak.

The U.N. might fail to fulfill their goal which was set in September to put 70 percent of Ebola patients under treatment and safely bury 70 percent of dead victims of the virus due to the continuing rising numbers of cases in Sierra Leone, Reuters reported.

However, progress has been made in some hard-hit areas including Liberia.

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"We are going to exceed the Dec 1 targets in some areas. But we are almost certainly going to fall short in others. In both those cases, we will adjust to what the circumstances are on the ground," UNMEER head Anthony Banbury said earlier this week.

Banbury said that the agency's main concern is in the rural areas of Sierra Leone as well as the city of Makeni, which is located in middle of the country, Port Loko, and in the capital Freetown.

According to the latest report released by the World Health Organization on Friday, the death toll accounted in the worst Ebola epidemic on record has now risen to "5,459 out of 15,351 cases" identified in eight countries by Nov. 18.

Majority of the cases are found in Guinea, Siera Leone and Liberia.

"Earlier decisions about the need for rapid construction of large ETU's (Ebola Treatment Centres) were taken in a certain context where that's what made sense .... Those efforts were to a large degree successful. But in the meantime the disease has spread," Banbury continued.

Liberia's president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf meanwhile expressed optimism at a ceremony held on Monday, saying that her country could still reach its goal of "no new Ebola cases" by Christmas.

"We've set a pretty tough target," he said, "But when you set a target, it means that you stay focused on that target and on that goal."