As a group of celebrities that includes Bono, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck calls for increased efforts to battle Ebola, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it was contributing $5.7 million for the study of an experimental blood-based treatment.
“The initial response to the Ebola outbreak was too slow and too uncoordinated,” said Michael Elliot, president of the advocacy organization ONE, which launched a celebrity-studded media campaign on Wednesday.
“Some countries have now stepped up to lead in a big way—with traditional donors like the US, the UK, France and Germany all making meaningful contributions—but this is a global crisis and it demands a global response,” Elliot said in a prepared announcement.
The campaign includes a video of the performers sitting silently before a camera, “waiting” for the world to take action, an Internet petition drive, and an “Ebola Response Tracker.” The tracker shows how much money has been pledged by nations versus how much has actually been spent.
The effort comes as 66 percent of Americans express concern that the world beyond the United States would see a large number of Ebola cases over the next year, according to a survey released on Wednesday by the University of Southern California Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research.
Of 925 individuals interviewed across the nation, 31 percent said they were concerned that the virus might strike themselves or their family. The survey also concluded that 77 percent of respondents got their information on Ebola from television.
By comparison, only 43 percent learned about Ebola from newspapers; 32 percent from Internet search engines; and 17 percent from public health officials.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 5,420 people have died of Ebola during this outbreak, with a total case count of 15,145. The WHO acknowledges that its weekly case counts underestimate the true number Ebola cases. Most of the cases have occurred in three West African nations: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
In effort to fight the disease, which is spread through contact with bodily fluids, the WHO has approved the use of experimental drugs and convalescent plasma. That action was taken three months ago, but production issues and ethical debates have delayed the rollout of these treatments.
Meanwhile, a Cuban doctor who was infected with the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone is being flown to Switzerland for treatment, diplomats and WHO officials said on Wednesday.
A WHO official said the agency recommended the evacuation of the doctor.
According to a statement from Cuba’s Ministry of Health, Dr. Felix Baez, a specialist in internal medicine, tested positive for the Ebola virus on Monday. He was being cared for by a team of British health-care professionals at Kerry Town, an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, when the decision was made to send him to Geneva.
Cuban diplomats told McClatchy that his condition was stable. A Swiss diplomat said Baez was expected to arrive on Thursday in Geneva, where he’ll be treated at Geneva University Hospital.
Cuba has contributed 256 medical staff to battling the Ebola outbreak in the three most affected countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Of those, 165 have been assigned to Sierra Leone, 53 to Liberia and 38 to Guinea.