Chinese doctors to assist Liberia in Ebola fight
August 2, 2014, 6:18 am

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has called for international assistance to get the outbreak under control [Xinhua]

The team, which first arrived in Liberia in 2013 as part of a Chinese medical and scientific engagement with Africa, says it will take all necessary precautions to ensure its staff do not contract the virus.

Doctors and healthcare workers in Liberia and Sierra Leone have been among those killed by the virus, sparking fears that it may have spread even further than initially believed.

“It’s a dire situation. The spread is overwhelming health workers and facilities. We need all the help and support we can get from the international community,” said Lewis Brown, Liberia’s information minister.

He added that the military was ready to enforce quarantine on the hardest-hit areas.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has told international media that one of the greatest obstacles facing medical staff in her country was the widespread denial that some families feel when someone falls ill.

“My fellow Liberians, Ebola is real, Ebola is contagious and Ebola kills,” she warned in a televised address earlier this week.

“Denying that the disease exists is not doing your part, so keep yourselves and your loved ones safe,” she said of the virus which has killed 130 in her country.

Sirleaf, who on July 31 ordered her country’s schools shut and called for the closure of markets in an effort to curb the spread of the virus, has called the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa “devastating” and “catastrophic”

“Containment is what we are focusing on and believe we can stabilize the situation,” she said on Saturday.

The World Health Organization raised the Ebola virus total death toll in Western Africa Saturday to 729 out of at least 1,200 known infected people.

“The scale of the current Ebola epidemic is unprecedented in terms of geographical distribution, people infected and deaths,” Medecins sans Frontiers said in a statement last month describing the outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Ebola is an incurable disease with at least a 90 per cent fatality rate. Symptoms first include headaches, severe fever, throat and muscle pains. This is followed by vomiting and diarrhea. The virus spreads from animals to humans and infection can quickly spread through contact with bodily fluids – even sweat.

The current outbreak was first reported in Guinea in early 2014, but quickly spread to neighbouring countries.

Source: Agencies