Senegal monitors contacts of 1st Ebola patient

By BABACAR DIONE September 1, 2014 1:56 PM

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegalese authorities on Monday were monitoring everyone who was in contact with a student infected with Ebola who crossed into the country, and who has lost three family members to the disease.

An Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 1,500 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The university student is Senegal's first case of the dreaded disease.

The 21-year-old left Guinea on Aug. 15, just days after his brother died of the disease, according to Guinea's Health Ministry. It said that the brother apparently caught Ebola in Sierra Leone.
The student traveled by road, crossing into Senegal despite a border closure. He arrived in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, on Aug. 20, according to the World Health Organization, and was staying with relatives on the outskirts of the city. The agency said that on Aug. 23, he went to a medical facility seeking treatment for fever, diarrhea and vomiting — all symptoms of Ebola but also many other diseases.

But he concealed from doctors that he had had contact with infected people. He was treated instead for malaria and continued to stay with his relatives before turning up at a Dakar hospital on Aug. 26.

Senegal's Health Ministry said Sunday that it has since traced everyone the student came into contact with, and they are being examined twice a day.

View gallery

In this photo taken on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, a security guard, center left, working at the Universi …

President Macky Sall said Monday that everything is being done to prevent any further cases of the disease in Senegal, including public awareness campaigns and television programs aimed at encouraging good hygiene practices, like regularl hand-washing.

The Health Ministry in Guinea, meanwhile, said that since the young man left home, his mother and a sister have died of the disease, and two other brothers are being treated for it.

The arrival of the disease in Senegal, a tourist and transport hub, has raised fears that the disease could spread even farther afield.

But public health experts have said that shutting borders and banning flights are not the answer.

"Countries might try to restrict travel in order to protect themselves, and it will do the opposite," said Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control, during a visit to the airport in Conakry, Guinea, on Monday. "If we cut off these countries, we will interfere with our ability to support them and stop the outbreak and that will actually increase the risk to the rest of the world."

A woman, center, reacts as she and others celebrate on the streets outside of West Point, that have  …

The World Health Organization says up to 20,000 people may contract the virus and it could take at least six months to bring it under control.

On Monday, Liberia's president ordered most civil servants to stay home another month in an effort to stop the disease's spread.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ordered non-essential workers not to come to work and promised that all government workers would still be paid. Liberia's schools are also closed.

Senegal says no risk of Ebola spreading from imported case

September 19, 2014 8:20 AM 

 

DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal's health minister said on Friday there was no further risk of Ebola spreading in the West African country, following the end of a quarantine period for those who came into contact with an infected Guinean man.

"The risk of the Ebola virus spreading from the imported case is non-existent for our country," Awa Marie Coll Seck told a news conference.

Vigilante 'border guards' keeping Ebola out of Senegal

By Malick Rokhy Ba September 6, 2014 7:50 AM

(Reporting by Diadie Ba; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Daniel Flynn)

 

Dialadiang (Senegal) (AFP) - A dozen Guineans await deportation at a Senegalese frontier police post, stopped in their tracks by the foot soldiers of an informal battalion of villagers at the forefront of a fight to keep Ebola out.

These new vigilante "border guards" are becoming an increasingly common sight since a Guinean student brought the deadly epidemic raging across west Africa into Senegal just before the border closed on August 21.
He remains the only case in the country, in part, say these villagers, because of the vigilance they have shown.
"They were trying to cross the border. We arrested them with the help of the villagers. We are waiting for the order to send them back," said a policeman in Dialadiang, one of the last towns before the frontier.
"Last week we sent back a Cameroonian and two Sierra Leoneans. Villagers arrested them for us to send them back," the officer added at the town's decrepit police post.
After Dialadiang, a last military post leads into Guinea, on a deserted road travelled by oxen, goats and plump sheep who take advantage of the thick carpet of grass on either side.
Alongside the potholed, iron-rich waterlogged track runs a dense forest which gives way to fields of peanuts, corn and cotton, dotted with thatched huts.

 

A man sits in front a preventive poster for the Ebola virus on display in the Senegal town of Dialad …

In the nearby village of Faroumba, under a light rain falling on vast green fields, vigilante groups keep guard.
"We stop Guineans every day to turn them back to the border. We do not want them to introduce the disease into our country," said Seniba Camara, an official of the town of a few hundred people.
"All the surrounding villages are kept informed. Residents regularly call to say they have arrested Guineans to deport," he added.
- 'Solidarity yes, contagion no' -
In the village of Linkering, near the Niokolo-Badiar country park which straddles the border, teacher Ousmane Balde told AFP he has been monitoring the movements of Guineans in order to report them to the security forces.
"Night time is a problem. We cannot do anything then. We just hear the sound of motorcycles passing," he said, sitting on the edge of the road among a group of young people who listen to him speak.

 

Vehicles wait for police clearance before driving across the border into neighboring Guinea from Sen …

The Ebola virus, passed on through contact with infected bodily fluids, has killed more than 2,000 in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Nigeria became the fourth country caught up in the epidemic, reporting seven deaths before Senegal registered its first case.
In the capital Dakar, some 600 kilometres (370 miles) away, the fear of Ebola is palpable.
A mob tried to get into a Dakar hospital to attack the young Guinean Ebola patient last week but were repelled by security forces, according to Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck.
President Macky Sall called for calm on Wednesday, asking the Senegalese people to "avoid stigma, while showing solidarity with neighbouring countries".
Seniba Camara, the official in Faroumba, thinks of Guineans as "the family of the Senegalese".
"But solidarity doesn't mean getting their contagion," he told AFP.
"The government of Senegal has closed the border with Guinea. Whoever illegally enters the country must be sent home," Sambou Niabali, a fellow resident , told AFP.
Another of the villagers, Ousmane Balde, sees the communities nearest to Guinea as the bulwark, preventing Ebola's spread.
"We want to protect our family in the interior of Senegal," he said.

But not everyone agrees with shutting Senegal to its neighbours.

"We call for open borders with controls at specific points where people passing through can wash their hands and have their temperatures taken and blood sampled," said Amadou Ba, a lorry driver in Diaobe, a town that hosts a weekly market once frequented by many west Africans, but now deserted.

Guinean who brought Ebola to Senegal recovered, to return

By Diadie Ba September 11, 2014 3:13 AM

 

By Diadie Ba

DAKAR (Reuters) - A Guinean student who brought Ebola to Senegal has recovered from the disease and is resting before he is expected to return home, Senegal's health minister said on Wednesday.

The 21-year-old was the first confirmed case in Senegal, raising fears the disease may spread in a fifth nation in West Africa. The world's worst recorded outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever has already killed at least 2,296 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Senegalese authorities are still monitoring 67 people who came into contact with the Guinean student during his 1,000-km land journey across the border from southwest Guinea, but authorities said there are no other suspected cases in Senegal.
"The results from the latest analysis of the imported case of the Ebola virus are negative. These results show that the patient has recovered and is no longer contagious," Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck told reporters in Dakar.

"He is currently recovering ... before returning to his country," Coll Seck said.

Some 33 people have been placed under quarantine in a house in the teeming neighbourhood of Parcelles Assainies where the Guinean student stayed with an uncle after arriving in Dakar in late August.

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday there were two suspected cases of Ebola in Senegal. However, the U.N. agency said on Wednesday that the individuals who had shown signs of illness on Sept. 3 and 4 had tested negative for the virus.

The WHO has said the epidemic is spreading exponentially in the worst affected country, Liberia, and it expects thousands of new cases there in the next three weeks.

The Guinean student's arrival in Senegal with Ebola sparked anger in the country and Senegal's government warned that other cases from countries whose health systems have been overwhelmed by Ebola should not follow his tracks.

"We did everything that we thought we should do for this patient and thank God he survived but that does not mean that people should come from all over to get treated in Senegal," Coll Seck said.