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Ebola Fight in Africa Is Hurt by Limits on Ways to Get Out
BRUSSELS — When a French nurse working as a volunteer in West Africa tested positive for Ebola last month, it took 50 hours to get her to Paris for treatment on a private American plane that had to fly all the way from Georgia to pick her up.The nurse survived, but according to the aid group that sent her to Liberia and arranged to get her out, Europe’s failure to establish a swift evacuation service for infected medical workers has become a serious hurdle impeding the battle against Ebola in West Africa. “For us, this is a big problem,” said Brice de le Vingne, director of operations for the group, Doctors Without Borders. “We will not be able to convince volunteers to go to these countries to help tackle the epidemic if we don’t have a good evacuation system.” Dr. Hervé Raffin, the general director of Medic’Air, said the biggest obstacle was a shortage not of aircraft but of pilots willing to fly Ebola patients. He said his company’s usual pilots had all refused because “they think the risk is too high,” adding that he knew of only two pilots in all of Europe who would fly Ebola evacuation missions. A 25-bed treatment center that the American military is building in Liberia to treat health workers could help relieve some of the strain. While visiting an Ebola treatment unit run by International Medical Corps in Liberia, Gen. Darryl A. Williams, commander of United States Army soldiers operating in Africa, said his forces had no general mandate to evacuate American medical workers who become infected. But he added, “If conditions warrant, we’re not going to turn our back." A spokesman for Ms. Georgieva said the European Commission was also hoping to reach an arrangement soon with Phoenix Air, a private American company that works under contract for the United States government and is the only air ambulance operator equipped to handle patients who have developed full-blown Ebola. The company, based near Atlanta, has two Gulfstream jets equipped to carry patients with highly infectious diseases like Ebola and is outfitting a third. The planes have flown more than a dozen people infected with Ebola out of West Africa, including the French nurse. Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-10-15 |
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