By AFP
LAGOS – The battle to contain the Ebola outbreak continued at the weekend, after Nigeria appealed for volunteers to help halt the spread of the virus, but Guinea went back on a statement that it was shutting its land borders with two of its neighbours. A day after the WHO declared the epidemic an international health emergency, countries as far afield as India were scrambling to impose measures to prevent contagion by the virus, which has claimed almost 1,000 lives. The UN health agency stopped short of calling for global travel restrictions, but some countries on Saturday began imposing bans. Zambia announced that it was denying entry to citizens from countries hit by the virus, while Chad suspended all flights from Nigeria. Nigeria, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are the countries hit hardest by the epidemic, which the WHO has called the worst in four decades. Authorities in Lagos, the largest city in Africa’s most populous country, said they needed volunteers because of a shortage of medical personnel. “I won’t lie about that,” Lagos State Commissioner of Health Jide Idris said on television, as the city — home to about 20 million people — confirmed nine cases of Ebola, including two deaths.
[eap_ad_1] The Guinean government had announced that it was temporarily closing its land borders with neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, but later went back on its statement, saying that it wanted to avoid clandestine border crossings. “We’re not talking about closing the borders between Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but rather of coercive measures to better control cross-border movements,” notably by people who risk carrying the virus, said Guinean government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara in a telephone interview late on Saturday. Beyond the epicenter of the epidemic, countries as far away as India were also taking action. Airports in the Asian country of 1.25 billion people went on alert, and the Indian government opened an emergency helpline on Saturday. India, the world’s second-most populous country, has nearly 45,000 nationals living in the four Ebola-affected west African nations, and Indian health officials said there was a possibility of some returning to their home country if the outbreak worsens. Indian Minister of Health Harsh Vardhan said in a statement that his country has “put in operation the most advanced surveillance and tracking systems” for the hemorrhagic virus. “There is no need to panic,” Vardhan said, calling the risk of Ebola cases in India “low.” Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan warned against spreading false information about Ebola, “which can lead to mass hysteria, panic and misdirection, including unverified suggestions about prevention, treatment, cure and spread of the virus.” Local media reported on Saturday that two people had died in Nigeria’s central Plateau State and about 20 have been hospitalized after they ingested an excessive amount of salt, which they believed could prevent Ebola. Nigerian Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu dismissed the salt and water solution as “total rubbish.” As African nations struggle with the scale of the epidemic, the scientists who in 1976 discovered the virus have called for an experimental drug being used on two infected US citizens to be made available to Africans. The two Americans, who worked for aid agencies in Liberia before returning to the US for treatment, have shown signs of improvement since being given ZMapp, made by US company Mapp Pharmaceuticals.
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