Health leaders beg for more doctors and nurses to join the fight against Ebola in West Africa

The United Nations is warning that governments must not allow hysteria to dictate quarantine decisions, as this will discourage health workers from coming to West Africa to fight the Ebola outbreak.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Health workers must not be deterred from fighting Ebola in West Africa, the source of the largest and deadliest outbreak in world history, as allowing the disease to become endemic in Africa would make moot any attempt at quarantine.

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New York, New Jersey and Illinois have issued quarantine orders for people returning from West Africa, fearing that federal quarantine guidelines do not adequately stop potentially infected individuals from entering the United States.

"Anything that will dissuade foreign trained personnel from coming here to West Africa and joining us on the frontline to fight the fight would be very, very unfortunate," said Anthony Banbury, the head of the U.N. Ebola Emergency Response Mission (UNMEER).

He said that health workers who are returning home after fighting Ebola should be seen as heroes.

"Decisions (on quarantine) should be based on science and fact and not hype and hysteria, and decisions should be taken in a way that will promote the most rapid, effective response," Banbury said.

UNMEER was established after aid groups complained that the World Health Organization (WHO) was moving too slowly in responding to the outbreak which had been identified in March.

UNMEER has set December 1 as its deadline to have 70% of Ebola cases under treatment, and 70% of Ebola victims safely buried. The organization also has set November 1 as the date in which to begin mobilizing necessary resources.

The European Union's new Ebola coordinator, Christos Stylianides, urged health care workers to volunteer to fight Ebola in West Africa.

"What is most needed at this stage is human expertise. The affected countries already have few skilled staff, especially health staff ... They badly need reinforcements," he said during a press conference in Brussels.

"We also need more beds, from 1,000 at present to 5,000 as soon as possible. Every bed requires eight health and support staff. This means we need to mobilize immediately at least 40,000 staff."

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