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.
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.
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.
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.
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.