Despite assurances by the Japanese government that it stands ready to tackle an Ebola outbreak, a lack of facilities to handle the virus suggests such assertions may be overly optimistic.
As of last Sunday, the hemorrhagic virus had killed more than 4,400 people worldwide, and nearly 9,000 were known to be infected, mostly in West Africa, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With fears growing of an international pandemic, Japan is taking administrative steps to strengthen its response. The government has introduced a bill in the Diet that would give local governments greater power to require patients with infectious diseases to submit samples for Ebola testing.
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