Sierra Leone police blockade Ebola areas, Liberia declares emergency
By Umaru Fofana and Clair MacDougall
Reuters.co.uk
Thu Aug 7, 2014
(Reuters) – Police and soldiers in Sierra Leone blockaded rural areas hit by the deadly Ebola virus on Thursday, a senior officer said, after neighbouring Liberia declared a state of emergency to tackle the worst-ever outbreak of the disease, which has killed 932 people.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf announced emergency measures late on Wednesday that will, for 90 days, allow her government to curtail civil rights by imposing quarantines on badly affected communities to contain an epidemic that has struck four West African nations.
In Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) experts were due to hold a second day of meetings to discuss emergency measures to tackle the outbreak and whether to classify it as an international public health emergency.
Though the vast majority of cases are in the remote border area of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, concern over Ebola’s spread grew last month when a U.S. citizen died in Nigeria of the virus after arriving from the region. A nurse who treated him has now also died in Lagos, and at least five other people have been isolated with symptoms.
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