State: 2 with Ebola being evacuated

The State Department said Friday that it is coordinating the medical evacuation of two Americans sickened by Ebola disease in West Africa, and the World Health Organization warned that the outbreak there “is moving faster than our efforts to control it.”

Deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said that State officials are working with the CDC to bring the pair back to the United States. Given escalating concerns here about the deadly disease — for which there is no treatment or vaccine — her statement stressed that “the safety and security of U.S. citizens is our paramount concern.”

“Every precaution is being taken to move the patients safely and securely, to provide critical care en route on a non-commercial aircraft, and to maintain strict isolation upon arrival,” Harf said, stressing the steps taken to prevent spread.

The health care workers had been assisting U.S.-based charities’ response in Liberia when they began showing symptoms of the virus. A CNN report said a specially equipped charter plane reportedly left a Georgia airport Thursday to pick them up.

Harf said medical privacy rules restrict the department from confirming details about the two patients. However, the names and conditions of physician Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol already have been widely discussed by Samaritan’s Purse and SIM.

At least one of the workers is likely headed to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. The hospital said in a statement Thursday that it had been told to expect a patient for its highly specialized isolation unit, one of only four such facilities in the country.

Americans’ increasing attention to the outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — and a disease that CDC Director Thomas Frieden has called “dreadful and merciless” — comes just before President Barack Obama convenes an Africa Leaders Summit next week with dozens of heads of state and senior leaders.

Harf said Thursday that no changes to the summit’s agenda or security measures were expected. But the event may now include a meeting between HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, CDC officials and members of the delegations from the three affected nations.

The WHO director-general, Margaret Chan, said Friday that there would be “catastrophic” consequences should the situation in those countries continue to deteriorate.

Increasing mortality, “severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries” were the specific risks Chan detailed in the overview she delivered to their presidents during a meeting in Guinea. She called for the epidemic to receive “urgent priority” globally.

Chan said WHO will convene an emergency committee Wednesday to consider the international implications of the outbreak. And she announced a new joint response plan on Ebola, which has claimed more than 700 lives since March. A WHO release said the plan would be the U.S. equivalent of $100 million....