African Union commission Chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. (Credit: Standard Media)
Updated Monday, September 8th 2014
African Union chiefs held an emergency meeting Monday to hammer out a continent-wide strategy to deal with the Ebola epidemic, which has killed over 2,000 people in west Africa.
“Fighting Ebola must be done in a manner that doesn’t fuel isolation or lead to the stigmatisation of victims, communities and countries,” AU commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, speaking at the opening of the meeting.
Dlamini-Zuma told the executive council of the 54-member body, meeting at the bloc’s headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, of the urgent need to “craft a united, comprehensive and collective African response” to the outbreak.
The meeting came as hopes rose of a potential vaccine to provide temporary shield against Ebola.
A novel vaccine tested so far only on monkeys provided “completely short-term and partial long-term protection” from the deadly virus, researchers reported in the journal Nature Medicine.
The study endorsed approval for tests on humans, which would begin in early September, with first results by year’s end.
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Related:
Ebola’s Economic Toll on Africa Starts to Emerge (The Wall Street Journal)
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