Thursday 14 August 2014

Korean Air suspends Kenya flights over Ebola

Korean Air Lines Co. is suspending flights to and from Kenya in what
it says is a measure to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus.
The South Korean flag carrier said on Thursday it would stop operating
flights between the southern city of Incheon and Nairobi from August
20.

The carrier flies to Nairobi, which is its only destination in Africa,
three times a week and did not say when it would resume its service.

Ebola has not been detected in Kenya yet during this most recent
outbreak, the worst recorded.

The outbreak has killed more than 1,000 people since the start of the
year in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nigeria last month became
the fourth West African country affected.

Dubai carrier Emirates was the first major international airline to
impose a ban in response to the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa by
suspending flights to Guinea on August 2.

Liberia receives experimental drug

News of the move came after Liberia received the last known doses of
the experimental drug ZMapp, to be administered to a small number of
patients infected with the virus.

The boxes containing the drug were brought to Liberia on board a
flight from the US, carried personally by Liberian Foreign Minister
Augustine Ngafuan.

Dr Moses Massaquoi, who helped the Liberian government acquire the
doses of ZMapp, said there was enough of the drug to treat three
people, one more than the government had stated earlier.

Massaquoi also said he was holding talks with the Canadian maker of
another experimental Ebola drug.

The Canadian government has promised to donate 800 to 1,000 doses of
its untested Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

But manufacturer Tekmira Pharmaceuticals on Wednesday said further
trials were required before it could make the treatment available,
despite this week's assurances by the WHO that it was ethical to use
untested treatments to fight the outbreak.

Nigeria cases rise

The developments came as Nigeria announced its number of confirmed
Ebola cases had risen by one to 11.

The figure included three deaths and eight people who were being
treated at a special isolation unit set up in Lagos, Health Minister
Onyebuchi Chukwu said.
Nigeria has not recorded a case outside Lagos but there were fears
that a nurse who was infected in the city may have carried the virus
to the key eastern city of Enugu.

No comments:

Post a Comment