(NaturalNews) As the Ebola outbreak continues to spread throughout West Africa and now beyond, to the United States, one survivor of the disease is warning the world that it has only a limited amount of time before the disease spirals out of control and becomes a true global pandemic.
Will Pooley, a British nurse who contracted Ebola while working a relief mission in West Africa and has survived, told an international summit recently that the world must avoid "at all cost" the "horror and misery" of watching young children perish from the disease while suffering through deplorable, horrible conditions.
Pooley made his emotional plea at the Defeating Ebola conference in London, which drew representatives from 20 countries as well as international aid organizations, all of which pledged additional financial and medical assistance.
As reported by Britain's Daily Mail:
Visibly upset and at times overwhelmed by his emotions, Mr Pooley retold the case of a brother and sister, aged four and two, who he cared for in Sierra Leone.
He described the 'squalid' conditions they were treated in, telling how the young boy died with a pained grimace on his face lying naked in a pool of his own diarrhoea.
'Spiraling completely out of control'
The girl, whom he described as "beautiful," died one day after her brother; he said she appeared to have a puzzled look on her face while she lay covered in her own blood.
"My specific fear is the horror and the misery of these deaths," Pooley, 29, told the conference attendees. "And I just don't know what happens if that is repeated one million times and so I say, at all costs we can't let that happen."
Pooley had just returned from a life-saving mission to the United States, where he gave blood in a bid to help a victim of the virus -- a friend and colleague he worked with in Sierra Leone. Both were there to care for victims of the virus.
His emotional plea to attendees came as 34 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) joined to send a warning to the global community that the world has less than four weeks to stop the disease from "spiraling completely out of control."
Speaking at the conference, officials with the International Rescue Committee backed a six-point plan to counter "infection rates that are growing exponentially." The IRC and the other NGOs said that the number of Ebola cases is "doubling roughly every three weeks," a statistic coming on the heels of an announcement earlier in the week by the World Health Organization that the Ebola death toll had passed 3,000 victims in West Africa.
In addition, the organization Save the Children announced that five people are becoming infected with the virus every hour. Also, the UN's chief of Ebola response warned that, the longer the outbreak continues to infect people, the better the chances are that it will mutate and become airborne.
'Nightmare scenario'
As the Daily Mail reported:
Anthony Banbury, the Secretary General's Special Representative, has said there is a 'nightmare' prospect the deadly disease will become airborne if it continues infecting new hosts.
His comments come as organisations battling the crisis in West Africa warn that the international community has just four weeks to stop it before it spirals 'completely out of control[.]'
Banbury later told Britain's Telegraph newspaper that aid workers were now in a race against time to contain the disease before it does actually mutate. At present, there are four types of Ebola that are harmful to humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The longer it moves around in human hosts in the virulent melting pot that is West Africa, the more chances increase that it could mutate," he said, adding: "It is a nightmare scenario, and unlikely, but it can't be ruled out."
To learn more about how to prepare for a potential Ebola crisis here in the U.S., be sure to check out the Natural NewsBioDefense.com
