Global alert as Ebola outbreak prompts evacuations

MONROVIA (LIBERIA) — The Ebola outbreak has led the United States Peace Corps and other aid agencies to evacuate hundreds of volunteers from three affected West African countries, while countries around the world prepare for the possibility that the virus would spread to their shores.

Australia’s customs and border security has been placed on red alert, while Thailand’s health officials have been told to watch out for anyone showing possible symptoms.

Back at ground zero, Sierra Leone has declared a state of public emergency to tackle the outbreak and will call in security forces to quarantine epicentres of the deadly virus.

The measures resembled a tough anti-Ebola package announced by neighbouring Liberia on Wednesday evening. Liberia ordered the nation’s schools to shut down and most civil servants to stay home as fears deepened over the largest recorded outbreak of the virus in history that has killed 729 people in West Africa.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is skipping a summit of African leaders in Washington this week amid the crisis, also called for the closure of markets in an area near the borders with infected countries Guinea and Sierra Leone.

“My fellow Liberians, Ebola is real, Ebola is contagious and Ebola kills,” she warned. “Denying that the disease exists is not doing your part, so keep yourselves and your loved ones safe.”

Meanwhile, the US Peace Corps said it was evacuating 340 volunteers from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Two corps volunteers were placed in isolation and under observation — though they are not symptomatic — after coming in contact with an individual who later died of Ebola, a spokeswoman said.

Ebola has no vaccine and no specific treatment, with a fatality rate of at least 60 per cent.

These measures come a week after an American man of Liberian descent boarded a plane in Monrovia and flew to Nigeria, where the authorities said he died of Ebola. The fact that he was able to board a plane and travelled through a major airport transit hub in Togo has heightened fears about Ebola’s possible spread in the region.

US health officials warned that Western countries were only “one plane ride away” from infection, while British Prime Minister David Cameron said the Ebola outbreak was a very serious threat to the United Kingdom.

However, countries were optimistic of containing the virus. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, after attending the emergency meeting to discuss the outbreak, said London was considering extra precautions, but was confident it could contain the disease if necessary.

“It is not about the disease spreading in the UK because frankly we have different standards of infection control procedure that would make that most unlikely,” he said.

Thailand’s Permanent Health Secretary Narong Sahamethapat said there is very little chance the Ebola virus will spread from west Africa to Thailand, but the country was stepping up vigilance and not taking any chances.

Experts say the risk of travellers contracting Ebola is considered low because it requires direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, sweat or saliva. The virus cannot be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air. AGENCIES