Hospital shut after Ebola outbreak

Spanish priest among seven to contract disease as death toll rises to 932

LIBERIA shut a major hospital in the capital Monrovia yesterday after a Spanish priest and six other staff contracted Ebola, as the death toll from the worst outbreak of the disease hit 932 in West Africa.

The outbreak of the deadly fever has overwhelmed rudimentary healthcare systems and prompted the deployment of troops to quarantine the worst-hit areas in the re- mote border regions of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The World Health Organisation reported 45 more deaths in the three days to August 4, and its experts began an emergency meeting in Geneva yesterday to discuss whether the outbreak constituted a health emergency of international concern and to discuss measures to contain the outbreak.

International alarm at the spread of the disease in- creased when a US citizen died in Nigeria late last month after flying there from Liberia. The health minister said yesterday a Nigerian nurse who had treated the man, Patrick Sawyer, had herself died of Ebola, and five other people were being treated in an isolation ward in Lagos.

In Saudi Arabia, a man suspected of contracting Ebola during a business trip to Sierra Leone also died early yes- terday in Jeddah, the health ministry said. Saudi Arabia has suspended pilgrimage visas from West African countries, which could prevent Muslims from visiting Mecca for the Haj in early October.

Liberia, where the death toll is rising fastest, is struggling to cope. Many residents are panicking, in some cases casting out the bodies of family members onto the streets of Monrovia to avoid quarantine measures. In heavy rain ambulance sirens wailed through the otherwise quiet streets of Monrovia yesterday as residents heeded a government call to stay at home for three days of fasting and prayers.

St Joseph’s Catholic hospital was shut down after the Cameroonian hospital director died from Ebola, authorities said. Six staff subsequently tested positive for the disease, including two nuns and a Spanish priest, 75, who was due to be repatriated by a medical aircraft yesterday.

Spain’s health ministry denied that one of the nuns – born in Equatorial Guinea but holding Spanish nationality – had tested positive for Ebola. The other nun is Congolese.

Two US health workers from Christian medical charity Samaritan’s Purse caught the virus in Monrovia and are being treated in the US. The con- ditions of the two improved by varying degrees in Liberia after they received an experimental drug, the charity said.

Three leading Ebola specialists urged the WHO to offer the drug to West African people too, but the agency said it “would not recommend any drug that has not gone through the normal process of licensing and clinical trials”.

Airlines such as British Airways and Emirates have halted flights to affected countries, while many expatriates were getting out, government officials said. – Reuters