UNITED NATIONS, Rabi'II 17, 1436, February 06, 2015, SPA -- The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that authorities battling Ebola must do more to deal with a high death rate among children whose isolation form parents causes great distress and deprives them of the special care they need. WHO technical adviser Dr. Margaret Harris told reporters that there was a consensus that the strict "no touch" policy for Ebola patients could be lifted if good measures are in place to protect health workers from infection. "There is a need to address issues around children and pregnant women," Harris said. "Children under five had a very high rate of mortality, this was often because need a great deal of support to be fed, to be cared for." Harris said that mortality in children under five has been 80 percent, and up to 95 percent among under one-year-olds who require intensive nursing and frequent feeding. "There was quite some suggestion that simply being separated and isolated as happens in an Ebola treatment unit had a devastating psychological effect on children, they did not have parents, they did not have carers," the doctor said. "The complexities of dealing with children, especially children under-one, were not really being met and they need to be met," Harris said. Almost 9,000 people have died out of 22,495 known cases in the epidemic that began in December 2013, according to WHO figures. --SPA 19:39 LOCAL TIME 16:39 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w