Liberian President Calls on Obama to Step Up Ebola Outbreak Aid Efforts

Health workers in Liberia don protective gear before handling the body of a suspected Ebola victim on Aug. 12, 2014.

The Ebola virus outbreak currently holding West Africa in its grip has prompted the president of Liberia to publicly plead for help from U.S. President Barack Obama.
 In a report in The New York Times, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, is quoted desperately asking for assistance before the country descends into an unmanageable state.

"I am being honest with you when I say that at this rate, we will never break the transmission chain and the virus will overwhelm us," said 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Johnson Sirleaf in a letter to president Obama on Tuesday, according to the report.

The public appeal comes just days before president Obama is scheduled to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on Tuesday to receive a briefing on the Ebola situation in West Africa and discuss U.S. plans to combat the spread of the virus.
Johnson Sirleaf's call for action from Obama follows a stark warning regarding the situation in Liberia from the World Health Organization delivered on September 8.

A health worker in Liberia sprays the body of a suspected Ebola victim with disinfectant chemicals on Sept. 4, 2014.

Image: Abbas Dulleh/Associated Press

Calling for "non-conventional interventions" in the country, the report stated, "Of all Ebola-affected countries, Liberia has the highest cumulative number of reported cases and deaths… to nearly two thousand cases and more than one thousand deaths. The case-fatality rate, at 58%, is also among the highest."
The head of the World Health Organization, Director General Dr. Margaret Chan, recently declared the Ebola outbreak "a public health emergency of international concern," and called for "international solidarity" in addressing the outbreak.
Back in August, over 70 CDC workers were sent to West Africa, including Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Guinea, to assist local efforts to track the disease. But for civilians, the region is currently on a travel warning list issued by the CDC.
"CDC urges all U.S. residents to avoid nonessential travel to Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone because of unprecedented outbreaks of Ebola in those countries," reads the warning on the agency's website. According to the CDC, 1,698 deaths have occurred in Liberia as a result of the Ebola virus as of September 11.
But despite the current dire circumstances in the region, there may be hope for an Ebola vaccine on the horizon.
According to a report from Reuters, an experimental vaccine, developed by the United States National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, will begin human trials on 60 people in the UK next week.

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