Ebola workers strike over lack of safety equipment

Liberia's health workers walked off the job today demanding hazard pay and more equipment to help fight the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

About eight out of 10 workers don't have the protective equipment including goggles, masks, boots and suits necessary to attend to patients with the virus, Liberia Health Workers Association Secretary-General George Williams said today. Some workers are reusing the supplies, which are meant to be destroyed after coming in contact with infected fluids, he said by phone from the capital, Monrovia. The group has about 8,000 members.

“There needs to be a proper coordination of what is being donated by the international community,” he said. “We're hearing about millions of dollars of taxpayers' money being donated and we appreciate every cent. But we need to see it at the health facilities.”

The number of cases in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea is doubling every few weeks, putting a strain on governments with limited resources. Less than a quarter of the more than $1 billion in aid and supplies pledged by the the U.S., U.K. and other donors has actually been committed. The World Health Organization called the outbreak the “most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times.”

Liberia has been the hardest hit by the disease since the outbreak started in December in Guinea and then spread to Sierra Leone. About 100 health workers have died in Liberia out of a total of 2,400 deaths. The death count rose to more than 4,000 people for all three countries last week, the World Health Organization said.