Zee Media Bureau/Shruti Saxena
New Delhi: The UN Security Council on Thursday declared the Ebola outbreak as 'a threat to international peace and security'.
As a global response to eradicate Ebola cases, the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution and has called upon countries to lend support to provide health personnel and supplies to the disease-hit areas Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
At the UNSC emergency meet, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was quoted as saying: “The gravity and scale of the situation now requires a level of international action unprecedented for a health emergency”.
“Ebola matters to us all. The outbreak is the largest the world has ever seen,” Ban said, calling for a 20-fold increase in assistance. “The number of cases are doubling every three weeks. There will soon be more cases in Liberia alone than the four decade history of the disease.”
UN chief also announced the establishment of what is known as the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, which will work in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO) to combat the disease.
The meeting comes after US President Barack Obama committed a deployment of 3,000 US troops and termed Ebola as a global threat which requires international response.
Till date, more than 2,600 people have died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record.
Ebola virus, which spreads through mucous and other body fluids or secretions such as stool, urine, saliva and semen of infected people, is believed to be very difficult to control at present.
