After a critique from Rubio, WHO defends work on Ebola response
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... Countries have the responsibility to detect outbreaks, agency officials noted

World Health Organization officials on Wednesday mounted a defense of their response to the new and worrisome Ebola outbreak centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency was "a little late" in identifying infections.

WHO authorities stressed that their role is to offer technical and operational help to national health agencies, which have primary responsibility for detecting the spread of diseases under international rules.

"We don't replace the country's work," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO's director-general, said at a press briefing. "We only support them."

Tedros said Rubio's remarks "could be from lack of understanding of how IHR works, and the responsibilities of WHO and other entities," referring to the International Health Regulations, which set out countries' obligations during health emergencies. ...

Explainer: What do we know about the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus?
www.nst.com.my

... Is there a test for Bundibugyo?

Tests for Bundibugyo exist but are not widely used.

Initial analysis of samples in the current outbreak using standard tests did not detect the infections.

"Because early tests looked for the wrong strain of Ebola, we got false negatives and lost weeks of response time," Dr Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy & Politics in Washington, DC, said in a statement.

"By the time the alarm was raised, the virus had already moved along major transport routes and crossed borders," Kavanagh said. ...