West Africa’s Ebola-hit nations have agreed to establish a cross-border isolation zone at the epicenter of the world’s worst-ever outbreak, amid warnings that the deadly epidemic is spiraling out of control.
The announcement came at an emergency summit in the Guinean capital on Friday to discuss the outbreak, which has killed more than 700 people, with the WHO saying that Ebola could cause “catastrophic” loss of life and severe economic disruption if it continued to spread.
“We have agreed to take important and extraordinary actions at the inter-country level to focus on cross-border regions that have more than 70 percent of the epidemic,” said Hadja Saran Darab, the secretary-general of the Mano River Union bloc grouping the nations.
Photo: AFP
“These areas will be isolated by police and military. The people in these areas being isolated will be provided with material support,” she said at the meeting in Conakry.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) opened the talks by telling leaders that the response of the three countries to the epidemic had been “woefully inadequate,” revealing that the outbreak was “moving faster than our efforts to control it.”
“If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives, but also severe socio-economic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries,” Chan said.
Photo: EPA
She described the outbreak as “by far the largest ever in the nearly four-decade history of this disease.”
“It is taking place in areas with fluid population movements over porous borders, and it has demonstrated its ability to spread via air travel, contrary to what has been seen in past outbreaks,” she told the summit. “Cases are occurring in rural areas, which are difficult to access, but also in densely populated capital cities. This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response.”
The leaders of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea used the summit to launch a US$100 million action plan that intends to deploy several hundred more medical staff to battle the epidemic.
The three countries are also expected to bolster efforts to prevent and detect suspected cases, urge better border surveillance, and reinforce the WHO’s subregional outbreak coordination center in Guinea.
Darab did not outline the exact area to be part of the isolation zone, but the epicenter of the outbreak has a diameter of almost 300km, spreading from Kenema in eastern Sierra Leone to Macenta in southern Guinea, and taking in most of Liberia’s extreme northern forests.
“The healthcare services in these zones will be strengthened for treatment, testing and contact tracing to be carried out effectively,” she said.
The meeting came after Dubai’s Emirates became the first global airline to announce it was suspending flights to the stricken area, while the US, Germany, France and Italy have issued warnings against travel to the three African countries.
Nigeria quarantined two people who had “primary contact” with a man who died of Ebola in Lagos last week.
The WHO raised the death toll by 57 to 729 on Thursday, announcing that 122 new cases had been detected between Thursday and Sunday last week, bringing the total to more than 1,300.
“Current numbers of national and international response staff are woefully inadequate,” Chan said, revealing that 60 health workers had died treating patients.
Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma has announced a state of emergency, quarantining Ebola-hit areas and canceling foreign trips by ministers, while Liberia has closed all of its schools and put government workers on leave.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf warned ahead of the summit that the crisis was “nearing a catastrophe” and appealed for more doctors and supplies.
Ebola, which has no vaccine, causes severe muscular pain, fever, headaches and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.
It has killed about two-thirds of those it has infected since its emergence in 1976, with two outbreaks registering fatality rates approaching 90 percent.
The death rate in the current outbreak is 55 percent.
Fears that it could spread to other continents through air travel have been growing, with European and Asian countries on alert alongside African countries outside the Ebola crisis zone.
In Britain, Sierra Leone cyclist Moses Sesay was quarantined and tested for Ebola at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, before being given the all-clear, the athlete told a British newspaper.
Kenya, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Benin said they had enhanced screening at border points and airports.
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