By ABC News
15 hours ago
Guinea's health
ministry this year has reported 122 "suspicious cases" of viral
haemorrhagic fever, including 78 deaths, with 22 of the samples taken
from patients testing positive for the highly contagious tropical
pathogen.
"We are facing an
epidemic of a magnitude never before seen in terms of the distribution
of cases in the country: Gueckedou, Macenta, Kissidougou, Nzerekore, and
now Conakry," Mariano Lugli, the organisation's coordinator in the
Guinean capital, said in a statement.
The
group, known by its French initials MSF, said that by the end of the
week it would have around 60 international field workers with experience
in working on haemorrhagic fever divided between Conakry and the
south-east of the country.
"MSF has intervened in almost all
reported Ebola outbreaks in recent years, but they were much more
geographically contained and involved more remote locations," Lugli
said.
"This geographical
spread is worrisome because it will greatly complicate the tasks of the
organisations working to control the epidemic."
The World Health Organization (WHO) and local health
authorities have announced two Ebola cases among seven samples tested
from Liberia's northern Foya district, confirming for the first time the
spread of the virus across international borders.
Liberian Health Minister Walter Gwenigale told reporters the patients were sisters, one of whom had died.
The surviving sister returned to Monrovia in a taxi before she could be isolated and the authorities fear she may have spread the virus to her taxi driver and four members of her family.
The woman and those with whom she has come into contact are in quarantine in a hospital 48 kilometres (30 miles) south-east of Monrovia, Gwenigale said.
-- Unstoppable bleeding --
Ebola
has killed almost 1,600 people since it was first observed in 1976 in
what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo but this is the first fatal
outbreak in west Africa.
The tropical virus leads to haemorrhagic
fever, causing muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in
severe cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.
The
WHO said Sierra Leone has also identified two suspected cases, both of
whom died, but neither has been confirmed to be Ebola.
No
treatment or vaccine is available for the bug, and the Zaire strain
detected in Guinea has a historic death rate of up to 90 percent.
It
can be transmitted to humans from wild animals, and between humans
through direct contact with another's blood, faeces or sweat, as well as
sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.
MSF
said it had stepped up support for the isolation of patients in
Conakry, in collaboration with the Guinean health authorities and the
WHO.
"Other patients in other
health structures are still hospitalised in non-optimal conditions and
isolation must be reinforced in the coming days," it added.
The
WHO said it was not recommending travel or trade restrictions to
Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone based on the current information
available about the outbreak.
But Senegal has closed border crossings to Guinea "until further notice".
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