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When the Ebola virus first hit Guinea two months ago, many people didn’t realize it was the deadly haemorrhagic fever. Saa Sabas, from Guinea, was caring for his sick parent when he contracted the virus, but managed to beat it. Now, along with the Red Cross Society of Guinea, Saa Sabas works to raise awareness of how to prevent the spread of the disease, to allay some of the fear and rumours, as well as to combat the ignorance about this dangerous disease.

With the Ebola virus affecting communities in Guinea since February, response activities ramped up in Guinea and neighbouring Liberia with Haiti now sharing expertise in beneficiary communications to help deal with the haemorrhagic fever outbreak.

Every 45 seconds, a child dies somewhere in the world from malaria and 3.3 billion people are still at risk from this deadly disease. It continues to kill nearly 700,000 people every year, primarily children under the age of five, despite the fact that there are options for treatment and prevention.

Pictured above, a 5-year old boy from Syria, recently displaced, gets his polio vaccination from Dr. Tarek of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent health department.

Red Cross has increased its response to help limit the spread of Ebola cases in Guinea, a west African country, since the outbreak began three weeks ago. This latest outbreak of the virus, which is highly infectious and can spread quickly through contact with infected persons or animals, has resulted in over 100 fatalities 

Natural disasters like storms, earthquakes and floods make news around the world, but health emergencies are silently affecting hundreds of millions of lives every year. The recent Ebola outbreak in Guinea—which the Red Cross is working to help contain—is a rare example of public health emergencies becoming global news. One of the most silent, and rapidly growing, health emergencies in the spread of dengue fever, a disease spread by mosquitos.

“Silent disasters” are emergencies that go unnoticed and unreported. They are also known as neglected crisis. You don’t hear about them because they don’t make headlines in most parts of the world. In fact, about 91 per cent of disasters worldwide are classified as silent.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Red Crossers and visited a Red Cross warehouse facility in Mississauga yesterday. He was there to make an announcement about the government contribution to the Typhoon Haiyan relief fund for the Philippines. The Prime Minister welcomed the generosity of Canadians who contributed over $85 million in eligible donations that are being matched by the government.