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Liberia restricts movements in bid to halt Ebola spread
Liberia has closed all but 3 land border crossings, restricted public gatherings and quarantined communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak in the West African nation.
The country’s president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf described the measures after the first meeting of a new task force she created and is chairing to contain the disease, which has killed 129 people in the country and more than 670 across the region.
A top Liberian doctor working at Liberia’s largest hospital died on Saturday, underscoring the dangers facing those charged with bringing the outbreak – the largest in history and the first in West Africa, under control.
Last week, a Liberian official flew to Nigeria and died of the disease at a Lagos hospital. It prompted a quarantine and subsequent week-long shutdown of the hospital. Staff are currently being monitored to ensure the virus has not spread.
According to the Lagos state health commissioner, Jide Idris, “the private hospital was demobilized, evacuated and the primary source of infection eliminated. The decontamination process in all the affected areas has commenced.”
Authorities are monitoring a total of 59 people who were in contact with the victim, including airport contacts, the Lagos state health ministry said. However, the airline he flew in with has yet to provide a passenger-list for the flights he used.
The fact that the victim, Patrick Sawyer, was able to board an international flight despite being ill raised fears that the disease could spread beyond the 3 countries already affected – Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
There is no known cure for Ebola, which begins with symptoms including fever and sore throat and escalates to vomiting, diarrhea and internal bleeding. The disease spreads through direct contact with blood and other bodily fluids as well as indirect contact with “environments contaminated with such fluids,” according to the World Health Organization. It can kill up to 90 percent of those who catch it, although the fatality rate of the current outbreak is about 60 percent.
Liberia will keep open Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia and James Spriggs Payne Airport, which is in the city.
According to health experts, the closure of borders on account of infectious diseases is “quite uncommon” and generally is only called for in “very serious epidemics.”
The Sirleaf administration has established preventive and testing centers at the airports and open border crossings. Other measures include restricting demonstrations and marches and requiring restaurants and other public venues to screen a five-minute film on Ebola.
The administration has also empowered the security forces to commandeer vehicles to aide in the public health response and ordered them to enforce the new regulations.
In Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koroma announced Monday he was heading to the east of the country to visit the country’s top Ebola doctor who became infected with the disease last week. Officials have said the doctor, Sheik Humarr Khan, has been responding well to treatment at a health center in the town of Kailahun. Khan has been described as a national hero for his work fighting the outbreak.
Health officials believe the outbreak originated in southeast Guinea as far back as January, though the first cases were not confirmed until March. That country has recorded the most deaths, with 319. Sierra Leone has recorded more of the recent cases, however, and has seen 224 deaths in total.
Source: Associated Press