– Wave of sick Liberians –
Dr Sakoba Keita, who is heading Guinea’s fight against the epidemic, told AFP that a wave of sick Liberians were crossing the border in the Macenta district in the south of country, where Ebola had up till now been on the wane.
“We are very worried about this situation of sick people arriving from Liberia. We are having more and more suspected cases in the area,” he said.
A Guinean military doctor on his way to the border said: “We are doing everything we can but there is a huge gulf between the rhetoric and the situation on the ground.”
Guinea announced 10 days ago that it was closing its borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone, a forested region notoriously hard to police, and it was unclear how the sick patients made it into the country.
– AU, Cameroon closings –
Now Cameroon also has closed all its land, sea and air borders with its neighbour Nigeria, and will restrict travel to other affected countries, a government spokesman told AFP on Monday.
The virus has claimed four lives in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. So far Cameroon has escaped unscathed.
The new travel bar comes as the World Health Organization said it had set up a task force with global airlines and the tourism industry in an effort to contain the spread. READ: Guinea declares emergency as W.Africa awaits experimental Ebola drug.
The outbreak has also led the African Union to cancel its summit scheduled for September 2 in Ouagadougou, although Burkina Faso to date has been unaffected.
There is no known cure for Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever which can be spread through bodily fluids including blood and sweat.
The epidemic is the worst since the virus first appeared in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has also claimed 380 lives in Guinea and 348 in Sierra Leone, according to WHO figures released on August 13.
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