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Samantha Power shows 'Ebola handshake' on Liberia trip

Samantha Power described the U.S.'s increasing efforts to curb the spread of Ebola in Liberia on a four-country trip to West Africa.

By Gabrielle Levy
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power bumps elbows in an "Ebola handshake" with Dr. Peter Graaff, the World Health Organization's representative in Liberia, as U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Deborah Malac looks on in Monrovia on Oct. 29, 2014. UPI/Facebook/US Embassy Monrovia
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power bumps elbows in an "Ebola handshake" with Dr. Peter Graaff, the World Health Organization's representative in Liberia, as U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Deborah Malac looks on in Monrovia on Oct. 29, 2014. UPI/Facebook/US Embassy Monrovia

MONROVIA, Liberia, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power praised efforts to improve the fight against Ebola in Liberia, the hardest hit of the countries affected by the disease.

Power, who also visited Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ghana on her trip to the Ebola hot zone, said the world had begun "to see result in Liberia" in changing some traditional practices that had hampered the treatment and prevention of the disease.

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"We have seen safe burials occurred at a much higher percentage than occurred in the early months of this crisis," she noted on her visit to Monrovia Tuesday.

In some towns, new mobile labs make it possible to get results of Ebola tests in as little as five hours, compared to the five days it took when the samples needed to be sent to Monrovia.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said it was critical for the international community to recognize these improvements toward containment.

"That's the only way to ensure the safety of our one world. It's by working that we all do what we can to eradicate this virus, not only from these countries, but from the world," Sirleaf said.

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Power assured her that U.S. commitment -- which includes hundreds of military troops and the coordinated efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with organizations on the ground -- would continue.

"We will beat this epidemic together and rebuild a Liberia that is stronger and even more resilient as it has proven itself through its previous difficult days," Power said.

Nearly half of the deaths from Ebola have occurred in Liberia, where 2,413 people have died and 6,535 cases have been confirmed, according to the World Health Organization.

Before departing Liberia Tuesday, Power met with the WHO's Dr. Peter Graaff, where the two showed off the "Ebola handshake" -- a bump of elbows.

Authorities in the hot zone are encouraging people to stop shaking hands as a way to help halt the spread of the virus, which is contagious through contact of bodily fluids.

"The U.S. is not running away from Ebola but walking toward the burning building," Power said, encouraging other countries to do the same.

Power, who arrived in Brussels on Thursday afternoon, has public events scheduled. She has said she will "obey the law," but did not say whether she would be quarantined upon her return to the U.S.

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"I and my delegation had our temperatures taken three times as between the time we arrived at the airport [in Liberia] and the time that we boarded the plane," she said. "Every place we entered in the three countries involved washing our hands with bleach, washing our shoes. These are precautions taken out of an abundance of caution."

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