BBC Online :
President Barack Obama has expressed cautious optimism about the Ebola situation in the US, as new screening rules were introduced in the country.
He said many relatives of the only known person to have died of the virus in America seemed to be out of danger.
Obama said there were “modest signs” of progress in Liberia – the hardest-hit nation in West Africa.
The known death toll is now 4,877 – a rise of 322 since last week’s report by the World Health Organization.
Most of the victims died in three West African nations – Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
President Obama’s comments came on Wednesday after his meeting with the head of America’s newly formed Ebola response team, Ron Klain.
Obama noted that relatives of Thomas Eric Duncan – the only virus victims in the US – had now been freed from quarantine in Texas.
He also said two nurses infected as a result of treating Duncan “seem to be doing better”.
In a separate development, new rules have now come into force requiring air passengers from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea to travel via O’Hare in Chicago, JFK, Newark, Washington’s Dulles or Atlanta airports, where they would undergo enhanced screening.
“The prospect of an outbreak here is very low,” President Obama said.
He added that there were “modest signs of progress” in Liberia and mentioned that a declaration by WHO that Nigeria was now Ebola-free was a hopeful sign.
In Britain the Church of England’s second-highest cleric, Archbishop of York John Sentamu, urged churchgoers in West Africa not to meet “in big numbers” because of the infection risk.
