Liberia quarantines communities

IBERIA will close schools and consider quarantining some communities it said yesterday, announcing the toughest measures imposed by a west African government to halt the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

Underlining the severity of the crisis, the US Peace Corps said it was withdrawing 340 volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea because of the spreading Ebola virus that has killed 672 people in the three countries since February

US officials said that two Peace Corps volunteers had been isolated and were under observation after coming into contact with someone who later died from the virus.

Security forces in Liberia were ordered to enforce the steps, part of an action plan that includes placing all nonessential government workers on 30-day compulsory leave.

Ebola has been blamed for 672 deaths in Liberia, neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures, as underfunded healthcare systems have struggled to cope with the epidemic. Liberia accounted for just under onefifth of those deaths.

“This is a major public health emergency. It’s fierce, deadly and many of our countrymen are dying and we need to act to stop the spread,” said Lewis Brown, Liberia’s information minister.

“We need the support of the international community now more than ever. We desperately need all the help we can get.”

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in a speech posted on the presidency’s website that the government was considering quarantining several communities based on the recommendation of the health ministry.

An earlier draft of the measures specified communities to be quarantined.

L“When these measures are instituted, only health-care workers will be permitted to move in and out of those areas. Food and other medical support will be provided to those communities and affected individuals,” she said.

All markets in border areas are to be closed, she added.

Referring to the orders issued to the security forces to impose the plan, Brown added: “We are hoping there will be a level of understanding and that there will not be a need for exceptional force.”

Compassion

Mike Noyes, head of humanitarian response at Action Aid UK, said people affected by Ebola should be treated with compassion rather than “criminalised”.

“Enforced isolation of a whole community is a medieval approach to controlling the spread of disease,” he said.

The first cases of this outbreak were confirmed in Guinea’s remote south-east in March. It then spread to the capital, Conakry, and into neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Concern deepened last week when a Liberian-American, Patrick Sawer, died from Ebola in Nigeria, after having travelled from Liberia.

Authorities in Nigeria, as well as Ghana and Togo, where he passed through en route to Lagos, were trying to trace passengers who had been on the same plane.

Some airlines in the region have cut routes to countries affected by Ebola, despite the WHO saying it does not recommend travel restrictions as a step to control outbreaks.

Britain held a top-level government meeting to discuss the spread of Ebola in West Africa, saying the outbreak was a threat it needed to respond to.

A US administration official said on Monday that President Barack Obama was also monitoring the situation.

Liberian health officials said an isolation unit for Ebola victims in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, was overrun with cases and healthworkers were being forced to treat up to 20 new patients in their homes. – Reuters