World Health Organization says Ebola is worst modern health emergency
"We are seeing, right now, how this virus can disrupt economies and societies around the world," WHO Director Margaret Chan said in a statement. WHO reports the death toll from the Ebola outbreak has reached over 4,000. Ebola has also caused economic disarray across the globe, and the World Bank estimates that Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have experienced up to $359 million in lost GDP.
Chan also stated that educating the public on the virus was a "good defense strategy." WHO has acknowledged that "fear of infection has spread around the world much faster than the virus." In Dallas, a nurse who had been treating a person infected with the virus was identified on Monday.
Nina Pham, 26, was treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man with the disease at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas according to ABC News. Pham is now the first person who has contracted Ebola on U.S. soil.
