Guinea closed its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia yesterday in a bid to halt the spread of an Ebola epidemic that has killed nearly 1,000 people in the three countries this year.
Authorities said the decision was taken primarily to prevent infected people crossing into Guinea, a country where at least 367 people have died of Ebola since March and 18 others are being treated in isolation.
The West African Ebola outbreak is the worst the world has faced and the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday it represents an international health emergency that will likely continue spreading for months.
It has put a severe strain on the health systems of affected states and governments have responded with a range of measures including national emergencies declared in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, which confirmed seven cases of Ebola in Lagos.
“We have provisionally closed the frontier between Guinea and Sierra Leone because of all the news that we have received from there recently,” Health Minister Rémy Lamah said, noting Guinea had also closed its border with Liberia.
The measures had been taken in consultation with the two neighbours, Guinea's Minister for International Cooperation, Moustapha Koutoub Sano, told a news conference. There was no immediate comment from Liberia and Sierra Leone.
While Guinea’s official land border crossings with the countries will shut, it will be extremely difficult to prevent people in rural areas crossing its long and porous frontiers.
It was not immediately clear how the closure would impact air travel. Ebola is one of the deadliest diseases known to humanity. It has no proven cure and there is no vaccine to prevent infection. The most effective treatment involves alleviating symptoms that include fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.
It was not immediately clear how the closure would impact air travel
At the same time, the rigorous use of quarantine for suspected cases is needed to prevent its spread as well as high standards of hygiene for anyone who might come into contact with the disease.
These measures have proved hard to enforce given that Ebola has flourished in rural areas of some of the poorest countries in the world. The task is made harder because of mistrust of health workers in areas that have long seen only sparse public health provisions.
The UN health agency said on Friday that 961 people have died during the outbreak and 1,779 people have been infected. The organisation, which said on May 18 that Ebola could be declared over by May 22, has been accused of failing to respond fast enough to the outbreak.
Authorities in Ghana said yesterday they were testing blood samples from a man from Burkina Faso who died while being transported to hospital in the Upper East region of the country near the Burkinabe border.