A volunteer walks at a cemetery near the Mediciens Sans Frontieres treatment centre in Kailahun
Reuters/Monrovia/Dakar
Health workers in West Africa appealed on Wednesday for urgent help in controlling the world's worst Ebola outbreak as the death toll climbed to 932 and Liberia shut a hospital where several staff were infected, including a Spanish priest.
The outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever has overwhelmed rudimentary healthcare systems and prompted the deployment of troops to quarantine the worst-hit areas in the remote border region of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported 45 new deaths in the three days to Aug. 4. Its experts began an emergency meeting in Geneva on Wednesday to discuss whether the epidemic constitutes a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern" and to consider new measures to contain it, including the possible use of experimental drug treatments.
"This outbreak is unprecedented and out of control," said Walter Lorenzi, head of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Sierra Leone. "We have a desperate need for other actors on the ground - not in offices or in meetings - but with their rubber gloves on, in the field."
International alarm at the spread of the disease increased when a U.S. citizen died in Nigeria last month after flying there from Liberia. The health minister said on Wednesday that a Nigerian nurse who had treated the deceased Patrick Sawyer had died of Ebola, and five other people were being treated in an isolation ward in Lagos, Africa's largest city.
With doctors on strike, Lagos health commissioner Jide Idris said volunteers were urgently needed to track 70 people who came into contact with Sawyer. Only 27 have so far been traced.
In Saudi Arabia, a man suspected of contracting Ebola during a recent business trip to Sierra Leone also died early on Wednesday in Jeddah, the Health Ministry said. Saudi Arabia has already suspended pilgrimage visas from West African countries, which could prevent those hoping to visit Mecca for the Haj in early October.
Liberia, where the death toll is rising fastest, is struggling to cope. Many residents are panicking, in some cases casting out the bodies of family members onto the streets of Monrovia to avoid quarantine measures.
"Everyone is afraid of Ebola. You cannot tell who has Ebola or not. Ebola is not like a cut mark that you can see and run," said Sarah Wehyee as she stocked up on food at the local market in Paynesville, an eastern suburb of Monrovia.
