‘Ebola able to spread due to the weakness of borders’
WEAK BORDER controls and urbanisation could have allowed the Ebola outbreak in west Africa to become so deadly.
Researchers claim relatively free movement of people between Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea potentially contributed to the virus spreading internationally. More than 11,000 people died as the disease took hold across the African nations between 2013, when the outbreak was thought to have begun in Guinea, and 2016, with a handful of cases treated in the UK. A study, published in the
journal, found towns and cities being located close to one another also had a bearing on the outbreak becoming so widespread, while heavily built-up areas might have allowed cases to multiply.
Other neighbouring countries might have escaped being seriously blighted by the virus due to their tighter borders, the report added.
The paper, which is co-authored by scientists from the University of Edinburgh, the US and Belgium, said: “Porous borders between Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea may have allowed the unimpeded (Ebola virus) spread during the 2013-2016 epidemic.”
But of the eventual lockdown of the three affected countries in 2014, it said: “However, even if border closures reduced international traffic, particularly over longer distances and between larger population centres, by the time that Sierra Leone and Liberia had closed their borders, the epidemic had become firmly established in both countries.”
The findings come as British Ebola survivor Pauline Cafferkey said she was planning to return to Sierra Leone for the first time since being infected by the virus.
The Scottish nurse said she hopes the fundraising trip in May will help to bring “closure” after a “terrible couple of years”.
Ms Cafferkey contracted Ebola in 2014 and has suffered a series of further health scares due to complications linked to the disease, at one stage falling critically ill.
The 41-year-old also faced disciplinary proceedings over events surrounding her return to the UK for which she was later cleared. Speaking to the BBC’s
programme, she said going back to Sierra Leone will be “psychologically important” for her.
She said: “It’s where things kind of started for me and I’ve had a terrible couple of years since then. So it will be good to go back just for things to come full circle for me and a little bit of closure. Most people have been supportive if they know that I’m going back. I’ve had a few people, like family friends, who say ‘just be careful when you get back there’.”
The nurse will take part in a 10km run during the fundraising trip for Street Child, a UK charity which helped youngsters affected by the epidemic.
It estimates around 12,000 children were left orphaned, with 1,400 still struggling to survive.
Ms Cafferkey said she has the ordeal of contracting the virus in common with its African victims, although their experiences were “very different”.