Power sees ‘positive signs’ in Ebola-stricken West Africa

United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power said on Sunday that she saw “positive signs” after visiting nations at the heart of the Ebola outbreak.

{mosads}“In Liberia, thanks to the presence of the CDC and the US military, we see the rate of safe burial, which is a key part of the solution here, skyrocketing to close to 90 percent in the capital Monrovia,” Power said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “In Sierra Leone, the rate of safe burial within 24 hours is close to 100 percent.”

Power said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects that between 50 percent and 70 percent of new Ebola infections come from unsafe burial.

“So you could imagine what a difference that could start to make here you know just in a matter of days or weeks.”

“More and more people are getting educated,” she added. “There are social mobilization that is now stretching out into the countryside.”

Power also said a U.N. official told her that Ebola rates in areas with a treatment unit, lab and social mobilization “are coming way down.”

Power said she has been self-monitoring for Ebola symptoms since her return from West Africa.

“In accordance in New York state guidelines, I am reporting my temperature twice a day to the New York state health authorities,” she said.

Power said more health professionals are needed in West Africa to fight the outbreak.

“Right now the Ebola treatment units that the United States is helping build in the country, in the region, are staffed,” she said. “Most of the NGOs that you talk to say we can see the next month getting covered in terms of healthcare workers but we don’t know what we are going to do for the month after that and this where we need to make sure that we incentivize these extraordinary individuals to go into the region and we welcome them and treat them with great respect and appreciation when they come home.”