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 "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 Reuters.
"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.
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 Organization. Liberia accounted 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 neighboring Liberia and
Sierra Leone.
The fatality rate of the current outbreak is around 60 percent
although the disease can kill up to 90 percent of those who catch
it. The illness, called viral hemorrhagic fever, has symptoms that
include external bleeding, massive internal bleeding, vomiting, and
diarrhea.
The U.S. 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 Corp 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 U.S. 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.
'ONLY HEALTHCARE WORKERS WILL BE PERMITTED'
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. http://www.emansion.gov.lr/
An earlier draft of the measures sent to Reuters 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 (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has said
this is not a risk to the United States at this time,” Schultz told
reporters traveling with the president back to Washington from
Kansas City, Missouri. He said the U.S. government had increased
assistance to countries battling Ebola.
Schultz said the White House would proceed with a planned
U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington Aug. 4-6 that about 50
Africa leaders are expected to attend to discuss trade and
investment between the United States and Africa.
Liberia's President Surleaf said she would not be attending the
summit but that Vice President Joseph Nyuma Boakai and a few cabinet
ministers "whose presence are absolutely necessary" would attend.
“We have no plans to change any elements of the U.S.-Africa Leaders
Summit as we believe all air travel continues to be safe,” Schultz
said.
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Last week, 40-year-old Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, a
consultant for the Liberian finance ministry, died from Ebola in
Nigeria after having traveled 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.
OVERWHELMED
Mike Noyes, head of humanitarian response at Action Aid UK, said
people affected by Ebola should be treated with compassion and not
criminalized.
"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 with cases
and health workers were being forced to treat up to 20 new patients
in their 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 told Reuters 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 centers 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 organization said it was withdrawing
non-essential staff from the country.
(Reporting by David Lewis and Emma Farge; Additional reporting by
Kwasi Kpodo in Ghana, Clair MacDougall in Monrovia, Misha Hussain
for the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Dakar, Lesley Wroughton and
Roberta Rampton in Washington, Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina;
Writing by Toni Reinhold; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
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