The World Health Organization (WHO) is convening a special meeting of Ministers of Health of 11 countries on the Ebola outbreak response in Accra on July 2 and 3.

As part of efforts to interrupt further spread of the Ebola virus in the shortest possible time, the Accra meeting would discuss the best way of tackling the crisis collectively as well as developing a comprehensive inter country operational response plan.

A statement by the WHO and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Friday said a press conference would be held on Thursday, July 3 on the sub-regional ministerial meeting to address solutions for ending the Ebola virus outbreak that had been spreading in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since March 2014.

It said in addition, two sessions of the meeting would be opened to the media: Wednesday, July 2, and Thursday, July 3 The statement noted that those sessions would focus on the situation, risk assessment, testimonials from Ebola survivors, summary of technical discussions and a declaration of the operational plan.

It said Health Ministers from: Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, The Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Uganda, would be taking part in the meeting.

According to the statement, partners involved in the outbreak, include extractive industry from the affected countries, United Nations Agencies, CDC, DFID, EU, ECHO, Institute Pasteur, IFRC, MSF USAID and WAHO.

The statement warned that the emergence of the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa threatened regional and global public health security. The World Health Organization has so far provided technical assistance through the deployment of over 150 multidisciplinary team of experts involved in a range of outbreak response activities such as surveillance, communication and social mobilization, infection control, logistics and data management.

There has been significant increase in the number of daily reported cases and deaths of Ebola as well as newly affected districts over the last three weeks. It said as of June 23, the total cumulative number of cases reported was 635 out of which 399 died.

This makes the on-going Ebola outbreak, the largest in terms of the number of cases and deaths as well as geographical spread. The statement said decisions taken at the Accra meeting would be critical in addressing the current and future outbreaks.