West Africa mobilises against Ebola epidemic

 West African countries mobilised Friday against an epidemic ofhaemorrhagic fevers including Ebola, which has claimed more than 80 lives inGuinea with more suspected cases in Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Guinea is the worst affected country with 86 deaths, 45 of them confirmed as Ebola --a highly contagious disease that leads to external and internal bleeding and kills upto 90 percent of patients in its most virulent strain.Mali on Thursday became the latest of Guinea's neighbours to announce suspectedcases of Ebola, saying three victims had been placed in isolation while test sampleswere sent to the US Centers for Disease Control.Oumar Sangare of the national health directorate said that all three patients wereMalian citizens who "worked in a border zone between Mali and Guinea".With Liberia and Sierra Leone also reporting suspected cases, Doctors WithoutBorders has described the outbreak as an "unprecedented epidemic" and warned theunusual geographical spread of cases complicates the task of containing it"enormously".But the nation worst hit by the latest outbreak is Guinea, where haemorrhagic feverhas killed 86 people out of 137 cases registered since January, according to thelatest government toll.The World Health Organisation said Friday that it is monitoring "just under 400"cases in the country, and is in contact with all those who may have come in contactwith the disease from the forested southeast area of the country.Other haemorrhagic fevers, including Marburg, have similar symptoms to Ebola,including muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhoea, as well as heavy bleeding and organfailure in severe cases, causing death.  - No cure, little treatment -There is no cure and little treatment for Ebola, although the government saidThursday two infected patients had recovered.Experts say isolating victims is the only way to contain the disease, although that isnot always straightforward in traditional communities, where social obligations andrituals are important.Doctors without Borders, which goes by its French acronym MSF, said Friday it hadbeen forced to suspend treatment in Macenta in southeastern Guinea after residentsattacked one of its centres."Activities have currently been suspended at the treatment centre. Some members ofthe local community became agitated and then aggressive," said MSF spokesmanSam Taylor."We fully understand that the outbreak of Ebola is alarming for the local population,but it is essential in the fight against the disease that patients remain in thetreatment centre."Suspect cases have been reported in Liberia and Sierra Leone, almost all due tocontamination from neighbouring Guinea. Ebola tests proved positive for two casesin Liberia and negative for those in Sierra Leone.Liberia has reported 14 cases of haemorrhagic fever, seven of them fatal, and all butone of the victims had contact with Guineans.But Liberia's health ministry said one suspected victim from a forest near the easterntown of Tapeta had no Guinean connection."We have a case in Tapeta where a hunter who has not had any contact with anyonecoming from Guinea got sick," chief medical officer Bernice Dahn told AFP."He was rushed to the hospital and died 30 minutes later. He never had anyinteraction with someone suspected to be a carrier of the virus and he has nevergone to Guinea."Samples from the hunter have been sent to Guinea for analysis.- Disease risk from 'bushmeat' Sylvain Baize, who heads France's National Reference Centre for haemorrhagic fever,pointed to the fruit bat, a regional delicacy that is suspected to be a natural"reservoir" for the Ebola virus.The disease can spread to primates and humans who handle infected meat -- a riskgiven the informal trade in "bushmeat" in forested central and west Africa.The west African region is confronted with its first ever major outbreak of suchdisease, unlike such central African nations as the Democratic Republic of Congoand Gabon, where some 1,200 people have been killed by Ebola since the virus wasfirst discovered in 1976 in the former Zaire.Health Minister Félix Kabange Numbi said the DRC would "increase the threshold ofsurveillance", monitoring 98 entry points and the country's hospitals.Guinea's neighbours have sent health teams to border territory and introducedmeasures to prepare for new cases and to prevent the spread of haemorrhagic fever.However, the measures failed to quell fears among some residents of Mali's capital."I'm really afraid," said Mamadou Sylla, the muezzin of a mosque, who visited ahealth centre before the announcement of suspect cases. "A sick man came in andeverybody thought he had Ebola. Everyone fled.