WASHINGTON — Center of Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden told a House Foreign Affairs panel the Ebola outbreak can be stopped but action needs to be taken quickly.
“We can stop Ebola,” Frieden said “We have to stop it at the source in Africa.”
He was concerned that the disease was more likely to spread if it were not stopped locally.
On Thursday, Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, called an emergency meeting of his House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa and global health to address the “grave and serious health threat which has in recent weeks gripped mass media attention and heightened public fears of an epidemic.”
In this outbreak, the average fatality rate for those contracting Ebola is estimated at 55%. Ebola has killed more than 900 people since February and has no known cure.
“It will be long and hard,” Frieden said, but the CDC is sending health care workers to assist in West African countries.
“The sense of urgency is so great,” Rep. Smith said.
Smith has said the “disparity in mortality rates are partially linked to the capacity of governments to treat and contain the disease and per capita health spending by affected country governments.”
Frieden said the challenge for health-care workers is in implementing a strategy of finding infected people, diagnosing them and responding to individual cases by putting the sick in isolation and monitoring them.
“We’re determined to not only stop the outbreak but leave behind strong systems,” Frieden said, referring to building supportive systems in affected nations.
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