tions affected by the outbreak of Ebola to screen “all people at international airports, seaports and major land crossings” in order to stop its spread.
According to the WHO, authorities in West African nations affected by the outbreak of Ebola should stop anyone with signs of the virus from travelling, days after it warned that the magnitude of the outbreak was “vastly underestimated”.
Immigration officers at the Airport in Lagos
However, the organisation reiterated that the risk of getting infected with the virus on an aircraft was remote and there was no need for wider travel or trade restrictions.
“Any person with an illness consistent with Ebola should not be allowed to travel unless the travel is part of an appropriate medical evacuation,” the UN agency said.
It would be recalled that Cameroon at the weekend closed all its land, sea and air borders with Nigeria in a move to prevent the spread of the disease.
Despite the fact that no cases of Ebola have been recorded in Cameroon, which shares a 2,000km border with Nigeria, where the virus has killed four people and infected about a dozen others.
According to the latest report by the WHO, the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has already killed 1,145 and infected more than 2,000.
The WHO’s latest statement came as Liberian authorities were trying to find 17 Ebola-infected patients who fled a quarantine centre on Sunday in West Point, Monrovia, after it was looted by an armed gang.
According to the country’s assistant health minister Tolbert Nyenswah, some of the patients were found and were being monitored at a hospital.
However, the AFP quoted the country’s information minister, Lewis Brown, as saying they had not been found, and the gang which looted the facility “took away mattresses and bedding that were soaked with fluids from the patients”.
Experts in Ebola virus have warned that the virus spreads through bodily fluids, blood, urine etc.