Ebola Fight in Africa Is Hurt by Limits on Ways to Get Out

NEW YORK TIMES

The nurse survived, but according to the aid group that sent her to Liberia and arranged to get her out, Europe’s failure to establish a swift evacuation service for infected medical workers has become a serious hurdle impeding the battle against Ebola in West Africa.

In Brussels, the European Commission has taken a modest step by having its logistics broker, a private German company, engage a French air ambulance service, Medic’Air International.

One of two Gulfstream jets operated by Phoenix Air that are equipped to carry Ebola patients. Credit Branden Camp/European Pressphoto Agency

The French company, however, has only one plane equipped for Ebola victims and will carry only so-called dry patients — people who have contracted Ebola and have a fever but have not yet developed more serious symptoms like bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea....

Doctors Without Borders says the European Union should get its members to pool their resources and place military or civilian planes on standby in West Africa or Europe. But these proposals have run into arguments over who would provide the aircraft, who would foot the bill and, most contentious, who would take overall control.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/world/europe/ebola-fight-in-africa-is-hurt-by-limits-on-ways-to-get-out.html?ref=world&_r=0