Senegal has reopened air and sea borders with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the nations worst hit by the Ebola virus.
The frontiers had been closed since Aug. 21, but the restriction was lifted with immediate effect, Senegalese Minister of the Interior Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo said on Friday.
“Senegal has decided to partially open its borders with the Republic of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as of this Friday... This measure applies only to air and maritime borders, excluding the land border,” Diallo said in a statement.
Guinea shares a land border with Senegal, which remains closed.
The announcement came after Liberia lifted its state of emergency on Thursday last week, announcing huge gains in the fight against Ebola.
Smaller, more mobile treatment units are being deployed in remote areas of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to act quickly to prevent the spread of the hemorrhagic fever.
No mention was made of neighboring Mali in the statement, which has recorded deaths from the Ebola virus. The land border between the nations remains open.
The WHO said on Friday that 5,177 people have now died of Ebola across eight nations, out of a total of 14,413 cases of infection, since late December last year.
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have suffered the most during the deadliest ever outbreak of the disease.
In its latest toll, WHO said that through Monday last week, 2,812 people had died in Liberia, out of 6,878 cases.
In Sierra Leone, 1,187 people had died as of Tuesday out of 5,586 cases, WHO said.
Guinea, where the outbreak began, counted 1,166 deaths and 1,919 cases, also as of Tuesday.
Senegal was declared Ebola-free by the WHO last month after a single, non-fatal case was earlier detected in the nation.
Meanwhile, A doctor from Sierra Leone who has contracted Ebola was early Saturday flown to the US where he has residency to be treated for the deadly virus, a senior medical official told AFP.
The flight carrying Martin Salia left the airport at Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown at 2:30 am GMT, Brima Kargbo, the country’s chief medical officer, told AFP.
Salia had been treating Ebola patients at Freetown’s Connaught Hospital, he said.
On Thursday the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, one of a handful equipped to handle Ebola cases in the US, said that it would treat the doctor if he were well enough to travel.
“The members of the crew will determine whether the patient is stable enough for transport -- if he is, he would arrive in Omaha sometime Saturday afternoon,” the hospital said in a statement on Thursday.
CNN had reported that Salia is married to a US citizen and has several children.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in