Guinea first country to stabilise ebola threat

The spread of ebola seems to have stabilised in Guinea, one of three West African states worst-hit by the disease, but a lack of beds and resistance in affected communities means its advance continues elsewhere, the World Health Organisation said.

Underscoring drastic measures being taken to halt the worst outbreak on record of the deadly virus, Sierra Leone put three more districts — home to over a million people and major mining operations — under indefinite quarantine.

An outbreak that began in a remote corner of Guinea has taken hold of much of neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, killing nearly 3,000 people in just over six months. Senegal and Nigeria have recorded cases but, for now, contained them.

World leaders and international organisations have warned of a crisis threatening the stability and economies of a string of fragile West African states. But they have also been criticised for doing too little too late.

“The upward epidemic trend continues in Sierra Leone and most probably also in Liberia,” the WHO said in its latest update on the disease, which has killed about half of those confirmed and suspected to have been infected.

“However, the situation in Guinea, although still of grave concern, appears to have stabilised: between 75 and 100 new confirmed cases have been reported in each of the past five weeks,” it added.

Experts are trying to straighten out data from the ground, where already weak local health systems are being overrun by one of the world’s deadliest diseases, muddying information on the current situation.

But most warn that the number of cases recorded so far represents a fraction of the real total, with many victims unable to find places to get treated or unwilling to come forward due to fears over the disease.

WHO said earlier this week that the total number of infections could reach 20,000 by November, months earlier than previously forecast. US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned between 550,000 and 1.4m people might be infected in the region by January if nothing was done.

Overnight, Sierra Leone’s president Ernest Bai Koroma announced that the districts of Port Loko and Bombali in the north and Moyamba in the south would be quarantined.

The step means five of the country’s 14 districts are now isolated. The districts of Kailahum and Kenema, in the northeast close to Guinea and Liberia, were already quarantined.

“The isolation of districts and chiefdoms will definitely pose great difficulties for our people in those districts,” Koroma said. “(But) the life of everyone and the survival of our country take precedence over these difficulties.”