UN's top Ebola official wants preparations for 'flareup'

By AFP

Africa

AUG 22, 2014 LISTEN

A member of Doctors Without Borders puts on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka Hospital in Conakry, Guinea, where people infected with the Ebola virus are being treated, June 28, 2014. By Cellou Binani (AFP/File)

Conakry (AFP) - The United Nations' new pointman on Ebola said Friday he was preparing for a possible flareup of the epidemic in West Africa.

"We're either close to a plateau, but then we'll drop, or we're in a phase, an inflection point, where it is going to increase, and I absolutely cannot tell," David Nabarro told AFP during a stopover at Conakry airport en route to Monrovia. He was determined to "ensure that every piece of our apparatus is at its optimum so it could deal possibly with a flareup if that's necessary."