UpdateLiberia shuts schools as Ebola spreads, US Peace Corps leaves West Africa

Liberia will close schools and consider quarantining some communities, it’s government said on Wednesday, rolling out the toughest measures yet imposed by a West African country to halt the worst outbreak on record of the deadly Ebola virus. “This is a major public health emergency. It’s fierce, deadly and many of our countrymen are dying and we need to act to stop the spread,” Lewis Brown, Liberia’s information minister, told reporters. “We need the support of the international community now more than ever. We desperately need all the help we can get.” Security forces in Liberia were ordered to enforce the action plan, which includes placing all non-essential government workers on 30-day compulsory leave. Sierra Leone on Thursday declared a public health emergency to tackle the outbreak and will call in security forces to quarantine epicentres of the deadly virus, President Ernest Bai Koroma said in a statement. The measures resembled the tough approach announced by Liberia. Koroma also announced he was cancelling a visit to Washington for a US-Africa summit next week because of the crisis “We desperately need all the help we can get.” Liberia information minister Lewis Brown Highly infectious Ebola has been blamed for 672 deaths in the West Africa nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organisation. Liberia accounts for just under one-fifth of those deaths. The first cases of this outbreak were confirmed in Guinea’s remote southeast early this year. It then spread to the capital, Conakry, and into neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone. The fatality rate of the current outbreak is around 60 per cent although the disease can kill up to 90 per cent of those who catch it. The illness, called viral haemorrhagic fever, has symptoms that include external bleeding, massive internal bleeding, vomiting, and diarrhoea. The US Peace Corps said on Wednesday it was temporarily withdrawing 340 volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and that two of its volunteers had been isolated and were under observation after coming in contact with a person who later died of the Ebola virus. The Peace Corps has 102 volunteers in Guinea, 108 in Liberia and 130 in Sierra Leone working in education, health and agriculture. The State Department has confirmed that one US citizen died from Ebola in Nigeria after being infected in Liberia. Two other American aid workers infected with Ebola, Dr Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol, are in serious condition, but they have shown slight improvement. They were part of a team in Liberia from North Carolina-based Christian relief groups Samaritan’s Purse and SIM. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said in a speech posted on the presidency’s website that the government was considering quarantining several communities based on the recommendation of the health ministry. An earlier draft of the measures sent to reporters specified communities to be quarantined. “When these measures are instituted, only healthcare workers will be permitted to move in and out of those areas. Food and other medical support will be provided to those communities and affected individuals,” she said, adding that all markets in border areas are to be closed. White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters that President Barack Obama had been briefed on Tuesday by his homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, and that the White House was monitoring the deadly outbreak. “The CDC [US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention] has said this is not a risk to the United States at this time,” Schultz told reporters travelling with the president back to Washington from Kansas City, Missouri. He said the US government had increased assistance to countries battling Ebola. Schultz said the White House would proceed with a planned US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington from August 4-6 that about 50 African leaders are expected to attend to discuss trade and investment. Liberia’s President Johnson-Sirleaf said she would not be attending the summit but that Vice-President Joseph Boakai and a few cabinet ministers “whose presence are absolutely necessary” would attend. “We have no plans to change any elements of the US-Africa Leaders Summit as we believe all air travel continues to be safe,” Schultz said. Last week, 40-year-old Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian finance ministry, died from Ebola in Nigeria after having travelled from Liberia. Authorities in Nigeria, as well as Ghana and Togo, through which he passed en route to Lagos, are trying to trace passengers who were on the same plane as he was. On Wednesday, Britain held a top-level government meeting to discuss the spread of Ebola in West Africa, saying the outbreak was a threat it needed to respond to. Mike Noyes, head of humanitarian response at Action Aid UK, said people affected by Ebola should be treated with compassion and not criminalised. “Enforced isolation of a whole community is a medieval approach to controlling the spread of disease,” he said. Some airlines in the region have cut routes to countries affected by Ebola, even as the WHO is saying it does not recommend travel restrictions as a step to control outbreaks. On Wednesday, Liberian health officials said an isolation unit for Ebola victims in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, was overrun and health workers were being forced to treat up to 20 new cases at patient’s homes. Protests by the local community against construction of an isolation unit at Elwa Hospital have ended, said Tolbert Nyenswah, an assistant minister of health, but patients with Ebola symptoms will have to wait at home until work is finished. “The staff here are overwhelmed. This is a humanitarian crisis in Liberia,” Nyenswah said by telephone. Nyenswah said the suspected patients were being treated by trained medical staff with full protective gear, but it would take at least 24 to 36 hours to build the new unit. Initial resistance to building a new isolation unit highlighted the fear and mistrust health workers have faced across West Africa as they battle the outbreak, which has strained the region’s weak health systems. Dozens of local health workers, including Sierra Leone and Liberia’s leading two Ebola doctors, have died treating patients. Samaritans Purse said on Wednesday it would stop running case-management centres in Liberia after an attack on employees over the weekend and resistance from the local community to the expansion of their unit in Monrovia. The organisation said it was withdrawing non-essential staff from the country.