U.N. group on ground to oversee Ebola battle

DAKAR, Senegal – The U.N. mission to combat Ebola opened its headquarters Monday in Ghana, where it will coordinate international aid to assist West Africa to combat the accelerating crisis.

This outbreak has spiraled into the worst for Ebola, and the World Health Organization says it has linked more than 3,000 deaths to the disease. Even that frightening figure is likely an underestimate of the true toll, WHO said. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been hit hardest.

In back-to-back speeches Monday at the United Nations, the foreign ministers of Liberia and Sierra Leone described the terrible toll Ebola has taken on their efforts to lift their people from poverty and recover from civil wars, and pleaded with the international community to continue to send much-needed aid.

“Only when the number of available beds surpasses the number of cases can we say Ebola is under control,” Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Samura Kamara told the General Assembly. “This is a fight for all of us; we must prove that humanity will be equal to this new challenge to our collective existence.”

In the face of such desperate calls, many promises of aid have poured in recently, and some of it has begun to arrive. France promised Monday to set up another field hospital in Guinea and to send 25 more doctors.

The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, also known as UNMEER, is now tasked with figuring out where the greatest needs are and making sure aid gets there, said Christy Feig, director of communications for WHO, which will play a significant role in the mission.

The head of the mission, Anthony Banbury, and his team arrived Monday in Ghana’s capital of Accra.

The needs of the outbreak continually have outstripped projections: WHO says about 1,500 treatment beds have been built or are in the works, but that still leaves a gap of more than 2,100 beds.