BAMAKO:
West African countries mobilised Friday against an epidemic of
haemorrhagic fevers including Ebola, which has claimed more than 80
lives in Guinea with more suspected cases in Mali, Liberia and Sierra
Leone.
Guinea is the worst affected country with 86
deaths, 45 of them confirmed as Ebola -- a highly contagious disease
that leads to external and internal bleeding and kills up to 90 percent
of patients in its most virulent strain.
Mali on Thursday
became the latest of Guinea's neighbours to announce suspected cases of
Ebola, saying three victims had been placed in isolation while test
samples were sent to the US Centers for Disease Control.
Oumar
Sangare of the national health directorate said that all three patients
were Malian citizens who "worked in a border zone between Mali and
Guinea".
With Liberia and Sierra Leone also reporting
suspected cases, Doctors Without Borders has described the outbreak as
an "unprecedented epidemic" and warned the unusual geographical spread
of cases complicates the task of containing it "enormously".
But
the nation worst hit by the latest outbreak is Guinea, where
haemorrhagic fever has killed 86 people out of 137 cases registered
since January, according to the latest government toll.
The
World Health Organisation said Friday that it is monitoring "just under
400" cases in the country, and is in contact with all those who may
have come in contact with the disease from the forested southeast area
of the country.
Other haemorrhagic fevers, including
Marburg, have similar symptoms to Ebola, including muscle pain, vomiting
and diarrhoea, as well as heavy bleeding and organ failure in severe
cases, causing death.
- No cure, little treatment -
There is no cure and little treatment for Ebola, although the government said Thursday two infected patients had recovered.
Experts
say isolating victims is the only way to contain the disease, although
that is not always straightforward in traditional communities, where
social obligations and rituals are important.
Doctors
without Borders, which goes by its French acronym MSF, said Friday it
had been forced to suspend treatment in Macenta in southeastern Guinea
after residents attacked one of its centres.
"Activities
have currently been suspended at the treatment centre. Some members of
the local community became agitated and then aggressive," said MSF
spokesman Sam Taylor.
"We fully understand that the
outbreak of Ebola is alarming for the local population, but it is
essential in the fight against the disease that patients remain in the
treatment centre."
Suspect cases have been reported in
Liberia and Sierra Leone, almost all due to contamination from
neighbouring Guinea. Ebola tests proved positive for two cases in
Liberia and negative for those in Sierra Leone.
Liberia
has reported 14 cases of haemorrhagic fever, seven of them fatal, and
all but one of the victims had contact with Guineans.
But Liberia's health ministry said one suspected victim from a forest near the eastern town of Tapeta had no Guinean connection.
"We
have a case in Tapeta where a hunter who has not had any contact with
anyone coming from Guinea got sick," chief medical officer Bernice Dahn
told AFP.
"He was rushed to the hospital and died 30
minutes later. He never had any interaction with someone suspected to be
a carrier of the virus and he has never gone to Guinea."
Samples from the hunter have been sent to Guinea for analysis.
- Disease risk from 'bushmeat' -
Sylvain
Baize, who heads France's National Reference Centre for haemorrhagic
fever, pointed to the fruit bat, a regional delicacy that is suspected
to be a natural "reservoir" for the Ebola virus.
The
disease can spread to primates and humans who handle infected meat -- a
risk given the informal trade in "bushmeat" in forested central and west
Africa.
The west African region is confronted with its
first ever major outbreak of such disease, unlike such central African
nations as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon, where some 1,200
people have been killed by Ebola since the virus was first discovered in
1976 in the former Zaire.
Health Minister Félix Kabange
Numbi said the DRC would "increase the threshold of surveillance",
monitoring 98 entry points and the country's hospitals.
Guinea's
neighbours have sent health teams to border territory and introduced
measures to prepare for new cases and to prevent the spread of
haemorrhagic fever.
However, the measures failed to quell fears among some residents of Mali's capital.
"I'm
really afraid," said Mamadou Sylla, the muezzin of a mosque, who
visited a health centre before the announcement of suspect cases. "A
sick man came in and everybody thought he had Ebola. Everyone fled."
