Containing the disease in remote parts of West Africa with no healthcare infrastructure is only possible with international aid, parliamentarians from Africa and Europe urge.

Ebola: turning the tide

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/11906249/n001-141202-001-en.srt

Sylla Abdoulaye is  a parliamentarian from Guinea.

It's from this country in West Africa that  Ebola started spreading in December 2013.

Guinea, like most countries  affected by the epidemic,

doesn't have the necessary  health infrastructure to care for the infected.

Without international aid  there's a very real risk of a pandemic.

Such was Abdoulaye's message to MEPs  in a joint parliamentary assembly.     

because the areas at the epicentre  of the disease are difficult to access.

we need trained personnel to treat the sick.

We are grateful the international community  has become involved even if a bit late.

But today we have opened  a treatment centre built entirely by France.

It took months for the  international community to become aware

of the magnitude of the epidemic  and the threat it poses to humanity.

Today, the European Union  is starting to take action.

What we are seeing now is certainly that  the EU is scaling up its efforts.

And we are seeing the effects  on the ground already.

A better coordination, but also  a commitment from Member States

to give 1.1 billion euros in assistance.

Of course they have to  make good on that promise

but this is changing  the situation on the ground. 

But for this MEP, there is a need  to go beyond the health emergency

and to provide support to the population.

I've spoken out on  and my commitment is to

helping the children, the orphans,  because most are away from school.

We risk creating a gap,  a missing generation,

because these children  need assistance now.

Not only medical but also psychological.

According to the World Health Organisation,

the Ebola virus has claimed  more than 7,000 lives in West Africa.