Authorities fighting Ebola must do more to tackle a high death rate among young
children whose isolation from parents also causes great distress and deprives them
of the extra care they need, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
Reporting on a meeting of clinicians from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, it said
there was a consensus that the strict "no touch" policy for Ebola patients could
be lifted if good measures are in place to protect health workers from infection.
"There is a need to address issues around children and pregnant women. Children
under five had a very high rate of mortality, this was often because need a great
deal of support to be fed, to be cared for," WHO technical adviser Dr. Margaret Harris
told a news briefing. Mortality in children under five years of age has been 80
percent, meaning four out of five die, and up to 95 percent among under one-year-olds
who require intensive nursing and frequent feeding, she said. "There was quite some
suggestion that simply being separated and isolated as happens in an Ebola treatment
unit had a devastating psychological effect on children, they did not have parents,
they did not have carers," Harris said. "The complexities of dealing with children,
especially children under-one, were not really being met and they need to be met."
Nearly 9,000 people have died out of 22,495 known cases in the epidemic that began
in December 2013. The U.N. Children's Fund said 16,600 children in the three countries
have lost one or both parents. (Source: Reuter)
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