A deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus that has so far killed at least 78 people in Guinea has spread to neighbouring Liberia, the World Health Organisation confirmed on Sunday.
In a statement, the WHO confirmed two samples of blood from Liberia tested positive for Ebola – a virus with a fatality rate of up to 90 per cent – and described the African outbreak as a ‘rapidly changing situation’.
In nearby Sierra Leone a further two recent deaths have been attributed to Ebola. It has closed its land border with Guinea to keep the virus from spreading further.
Isolation zone: Areas like this one in Conakry, Guinea have been set up to quarantine Ebola sufferers
Outbreak: Officials have now confirmed cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia
Officials have called for calm in the wake of the outbreak, with the WHO advising against travel restrictions being placed on the affected countries.
According to the UN’s chief public health body, ‘There have been 2 deaths among the suspected cases [in Liberia]; a 35 year old woman who died on 21 March tested positive for ebolavirus while a male patient who died on 27 March tested negative.’
The worrying news was passed onto the WHO by Liberia’s health minister Walter Gwenigale, who told The Associated Press that one of the patients, who died in Lofa County, was married to a Guinean man and had returned ill from a recent trip there.
The second patient is a sister of the dead woman. Mr Gwenigale said she is alive and has been isolated in a medical center outside of Monrovia.
He would not elaborate on the woman’s condition or circumstances surrounding her illness ‘because we don’t want to cause panic’.
Ebola is passed onto humans from animals – especially fruit bats – and often breaks out near rainforests in central and western Africa.
According to a WHO fact sheet: Ebola ‘is a severe acute viral illness often characterised by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.
Emergency response: The World Health Organisation is devoting extra resources to stop the spread of the disease
Epidemic fears: Doctors Without Borders is dispatching protection gear to affected regions as the death toll hits 70
‘This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes.’
The intensely painful illness is highly contagious and can be passed on to humans through contact with the bodies of people killed by the virus.
There is no known cure or vaccine for the five viruses which cause Ebola.
Guinea confirmed last week that several victims of hemorrhagic fever in the country’s southern region had tested positive for Ebola. Cases have also been confirmed in the capital, Conakry.
The WHO is devoting extra resources to surveillance and tracking of cases in response to the outbreak – which has been dubbed an epidemic by some news sources – and is training health care workers in the region.
Senegalese music star Youssou Ndour cancelled a weekend concert in the Guinea capital because it would bring a large crowd together.
The Ebola outbreak is the first of its kind in west Africa in two decades. It has killed an estimated 1500 people since it was first discovered in Zaire in 1976.
That bacteria has been around forever and nothing like this has ever happened before so could be that this is happening “with a little help” for the eugenicists (Bill Gates-thinking types)? The “green” people want to depopulate the world (of those OTHER people whereas if they truly care, they’d suicide themselves, their friends, and their relatives “for humanity” and as an example to others)