Ebola: Liberia Showing Signs of Recovery Says WHO Cautioning Against Undue Optimism

Liberia could be on the road to recovery after being hit hard by Ebola, according to the World Health Organization.

The announcement on Wednesday was made based on the drop in the number of burials and new admissions, besides a plateau in laboratory-confirmed cases.

WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward, however, cautioned against being too optimistic and stressed that his statement did not mean Ebola was under control.

"It's like saying your pet tiger is under control," he said. "This is a very, very dangerous disease ... A couple of burials go wrong, it can start a whole new set of transmission chains and the disease starts trending upward again."

But if current trends continued, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone should be able to "comfortably" meet a target to scale up Ebola-containment measures by December 1, he said.

The WHO opinion was seconded by Jeremy Farrar, director of charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust, who added that the next few weeks will be crucial to locking in potential gains made through increased international support.

WHO data showed a drop in deaths from estimates by 300 in Liberia but an increase by 200 in Sierra Leone, reports Reuters.

The overall death toll now stands at 4,922.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power called upon governments to deliver on their pledges to help the West African nations.

"There is a need for more beds, more bleach, more cash in order to pay community mobilizers or people who do safe burial," she told a news conference in the capital of Ghana after a visit to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

The three nations have struggled to contain the disease under the combined burden of poverty, public distrust of officials and corruption.

Progress in Treatment

A 44-bed Ebola treatment unit was on Wednesday turned over to the Liberian government by the German-Liberian Ger-Lib clinic with the aid of German medical aid organisation, Action Medeor.

In Freetown in Sierra Leone, the rate of safe burials of bodies had risen from 30% to 98% in the few days a burial command centre had been in operation, while in Liberia a mobile laboratory in a remote area has cut testing times from five days to five hours.

US President Barack Obama, for the second consecutive day, warned that travel bans and quarantines won't stop Ebola, saying "We can't hermetically seal ourselves off..it's critical that we remain focused on the facts and the science."

The US must keep sending health workers to "snuff out" the disease at its West African source, Obama said, adding that quarantines only raise the risk of Ebola spreading, reports Bloomberg.