A newspaper vendor holds up a copy of the NY Post in front of the entrance to Bellevue Hospital Friday in New York, the morning after it was confirmed that Craig Spencer, a member of Doctors Without Borders, who recently returned to New York from West Africa tested positive for Ebola. Photo: AFP

 

Women work on the CT1SL428, a protective suit for use in handling people infected with the Ebola virus, in a sewing room of Lakeland Industries Inc. in Anqiu, some 500 kilometers south of Bejing, on Thursday. Lakeland, a global manufacturer of industrial protective clothing, produces suits to be worn by healthcare workers and others being exposed to Ebola. Photo: AFP

Source: WHO/reports Graphics: AFP/GT

 

New York confirmed the first case of Ebola in the largest city in the US as the EU dramatically ramped up aid Friday to contain the killer epidemic ravaging West Africa.

The EU announcement of one billion euros ($1.3 billion) for the worst-hit countries comes as fears of a spread of the virus grew, with the first confirmed case in Mali, where a two-year-old girl has tested positive.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which has warned the Ebola crisis in West Africa "remains of great concern," held talks Thursday on efforts to ensure access to and funding for potential vaccines.

The New York case is a doctor who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea, the epicenter of the world's worst outbreak of the disease.

Craig Spencer was placed in isolation at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center, officials said.

With health workers in Spain and Texas already having caught Ebola from patients originally infected in West Africa, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio insisted the city was fully prepared to stop the disease in its tracks.

"We want to state at the outset, (this) is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed. Ebola is an extremely hard disease to contract," said de Blasio.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said city officials had already identified four people believed to have been in contact with the doctor, who worked for the charity Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF.

The announcement of the New York doctor's positive test came after Mali reported its first confirmed case of the disease, the latest country affected.

Malian health ministry spokesman Markatche Daou said the two-year-old girl had traveled to neighboring Guinea with her grandmother.

Health authorities have put 43 people who had contact with the toddler and her grandmother under observation, the WHO said.

In Cote d'Ivoire, up until now Ebola-free, a hunt was going on for a health worker from Guinea who may have fled across the border after taking fright when a patient he treated died.

EU leaders agreed Friday to boost aid to combat Ebola in West Africa by 400 million euros to one billion euros.

African countries have also pledged to send more than 1,000 health workers. With almost 10,000 people now infected, African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the regional bloc was responding to an urgent need for medical reinforcements.

East African members of the bloc have also pledged to send another 600 health workers, she added.

Ebola vaccine trials could start in West Africa in December, with hundreds of thousands of doses potentially being rolled out by mid-2015, the WHO said Friday.

"All is being put in place to start efficacy tests in the affected countries as early as December," said WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny, adding that several hundred thousand doses could be available in the "first half" of next year.

Kieny spoke after the UN health agency held closed-door talks Thursday on potential vaccines with medical experts, officials from Ebola-affected nations, pharmaceutical firms and funding agencies.

Two experimental vaccines are seen as the leading candidates to beat Ebola.

Supplies of Canadian-discovered experimental vaccine rVSV are arriving in Geneva for a new round of trials.

Hopes are also centred on ChAd3, made by British company GlaxoSmithKline.

There are five other potential vaccines in the pipeline, Kieny said.