Ebola ‘ground zero’ to be isolated

WEST Africa’s Ebola-hit nations have agreed to impose a cross-border isolation zone at the epicentre of the world’s worst outbreak, amid warnings that the epidemic is spiralling out of control.

The announcement came at an emergency summit in the Guinean capital of Conakry this weekend to discuss the outbreak, which has killed more than 700 people, with the World Health Organisation warning that Ebola could cause “catastrophic” loss of life and severe economic disruption.

“We have agreed to take extraordinary actions at the inter-country level to focus on cross-border regions that have more than 70% of the epidemic,” said Hadja Saran Darab, secretary-general of the Mano River Union bloc which groups the nations.

“These areas will be isolated by police and military. The people in these areas being isolated will be provided with material support,” she said at the meeting.

WHO chief Margaret Chan told the summit that the response of the three countries to the epidemic had been “woefully inadequate” and said the outbreak was “moving faster than our efforts to control it”. She described the outbreak as “by far the largest ever in the nearly four-decade history of this disease”.

“It is taking place in areas with fluid population movements over porous borders, and it has demonstrated its ability to spread via air travel,” she said.

The epicentre of the outbreak has a diameter of almost 300km, spreading from Kenema in eastern Sierra Leone to Macenta in southern Guinea, and taking in most of Liberia’s extreme northern forests.

Dubai’s Emirates became the first global airline to announce it was suspending flights to the stricken area. — AFP