Geneva: The World Health Organisation (WHO) is launching a $100 million (Dh367.8 million) response plan to combat an “unprecedented” outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, the UN agency said yesterday.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan will meet in Conakry, Guinea today with the presidents of affected West African nations, it said in a statement.

“The scale of the Ebola outbreak, and the persistent threat it poses, requires WHO and Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to take the response to a new level and this will require increased resources, in-country medical expertise, regional preparedness and coordination,” said Chan.

The plan identifies the need for “several hundred more personnel” to be deployed in affected countries to ease the strain on overstretched treatment facilities, the WHO said.

Clinical doctors and nurses, epidemiologists, and logisticians are urgently needed, it said in an appeal to donor countries.

“The plan sets out new needs to respond to the outbreak across the countries and bring up the level of preparedness in neighbouring countries,” WHO spokesman Paul Garwood said. “They need better information and infection-control measures.”

The plan aims to stop transmission of the virus by strengthening disease surveillance, particularly in border areas, protecting health workers from infection and doing a better job of explaining the disease to communities.

PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES IN PHILIPPINES

Meanwhile, the Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) Thursday said that it has adopted precautionary measures to prevent the entry and spread of the Ebola virus in the country.

Amid the growing threat of the disease, Health Secretary Enrique Ona said there was still no cause for alarm, Xinhua reported.

“We are not worried but we are concerned and when we say we are concerned, we are doing everything to make sure that (the disease) does not reach our people,” Ona said.

He said quarantine personnel at Philippine airports have already been instructed to make sure that all incoming travellers go through thermal scanners.

Ona said the DOH also has reagents and testing kits which can be used for early diagnosis of cases.

He said the Philippine government will educate overseas Filipino workers in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone about the disease.

According to the UN, 670 people in West Africa have died of Ebola virus disease since February, 224 of them in Sierra Leone.

US TRAVEL WARNING

In the US health authorities on Thursday issued a travel warning for three African nations struggling with the largest outbreak of deadly Ebola virus in history.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention “recommends against non-essential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone,” said director Tom Frieden.

“This is because the ongoing Ebola outbreak represents a potential risk to travellers,” he said.

The CDC is also sending 50 extra specialists to the affected areas in West Africa, he said.

The current outbreak of Ebola has killed 729 people in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Liberia, the World Health Organisation said.

The virus can be fatal in up to 90 percent of cases, though this outbreak has killed about 60 percent of those infected.