Liberia closed its border with Guinea this week after a flare-up of Ebola in Guinea, Information Minister Lenn Eugene Nangbe told dpa on Tuesday.
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National Coordination of the Fight against Ebola i, Guinea’s spokesperson, Fode Sylla Tass said that the fifth fatality due to Ebola in Guinea was report in Macenta prefecture which is about 200 kilometres from the Korokpara village where the other four Ebola-related deaths occurred.
The closure of the borders on Monday was a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of Ebola from Guinea into Liberia, Nangbe said.
The new outbreak has prompted fear in Liberia, which has lost more than 4,000 people to the deadly virus and already has been declared Ebola-free twice only to find more cases.
Five people in Guinea have died after a re-emergence of the disease in the country’s south.
He said the border “will remain closed until the situation in Guinea improves”.
Another patient has died of Ebola virus in southeast Guinea.
“We are not taking any chance at all”.
A married couple who consecutively died in southern village of Koropara is suspected to be an Ebola case.
An investigation into the hundreds of people who may have acquired the disease from contact with Ebola victims was under way, Sylla added, focusing on “who came to (victims’) burials, who paid them visits, who washed the bodies”.
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The panic is understandable as West Africa saw at least 11,300 deaths from the risky virus since 2013. The villagers are being quarantined in their homes for 21 days to make sure they are Ebola-free. The epidemic is believed to have started in Guinea and the World Health Organization has warned that Ebola could resurface at any time as it exists in eyes, central nervous system and bodily fluids of some survivors.
