Protest over Ebola — corpses ignored

MONROVIA, Liberia — Riot police raced to quell a demonstration blocking Liberia’s busiest highway Saturday as an angry crowd protested the government’s delays in collecting the bodies of Ebola victims.

In Guinea, where the deadly Ebola outbreak emerged in March, health officials announced Saturday that the country was closing its land borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone — two of the countries where the killer virus has now spread and where deaths are mounting.

The World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak an international health emergency Friday. The growing unease in Liberia, where nearly 300 people have died from the gruesome disease, raises the specter of social unrest.

Several bodies had been lying by the roadside for two days in the central town of We a la, 50 miles from the capital of Monrovia, and no government agency had picked them up, residents said.

The Ebola virus spreads through the bodily fluids of its victims and many in West Africa have fallen ill after touching or handling corpses. Liberia’s government has ordered that all Ebola victims be cremated amid community opposition to neighborhood burials for fear of further contamination.

The latest Ebola outbreak is the largest ever recorded for the disease and so far has killed at least 961 people.