Government says patient dies after catching disease in Guinea, where 70 have died in one of worst outbreaks for years.

Guinea has confirmed Ebola cases at hospitals in the capital, Conakry [AFP]

Liberia has confirmed two patients have tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus, which is already believed to have killed at least 70 people in neighbouring Guinea.

Walter Gwenigale, Liberia's health minister, told the Associated Press news agency late on Sunday that one patient was married to a Guinean man and had returned ill from a recent trip there. She died in Lofa County.

The second patient is the sister of the dead woman. Gwenigale said she is alive and has been isolated in a medical centre outside of Monrovia, declining to give further details "because we don't want to cause panic".

Guinea confirmed last week that dozens of victims of hemorrhagic fever in the country's southern region had tested positive for Ebola. Cases have also been confirmed in the capital, Conakry.

Senegal on Saturday said its border crossings to Guinea would be closed "until further notice", while Sierra Leone has also reported suspected cases of the disease.

No treatment or vaccine is available for Ebola, a highly infectious and virulent disease which can cause uncontrollable bleeding. The Zaire strain detected in Guinea, first recorded 38 years ago in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, has a 90 percent death rate.

It can be transmitted to humans from wild animals, and between humans through direct contact with blood, bodily fluids or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.

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                            Boko Haram has been accused of numerous attacks in the north

More than three million people are facing a humanitarian crisis in three northern Nigerian states hit by an Islamist-led insurgency, the government's relief agency has said.

The conflict has displaced about 250,000 people since January, it added.

President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the three states last year to crush the insurgency.

However, the militant Islamist group Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in recent months.

The group operates mostly in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, where the state of emergency is in force.

'Unprecedented crisis'

In a statement, the Nigerian government's National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) said the "needs of the affected population are increasing by the day and the support of all is urgently required".

Borno was worst affected, with about 1.3 million people - most of them women, children and the elderly - in need of aid, Nema said.

In Adamawa, the number stood at around one million and in Yobe at more than 770,000, it said.

The government has vowed to defeat the militants

About 250,000 people were living in camps or with relatives and friends after being forced out of their homes, the agency added.

Nigerian Red Cross Society representative Soji Adeniyi said what has happening in the north-east was unprecedented.

"We have never had this kind of displacement caused by conflicts before in the country,'' he is quoted by Nigeria's privately-owned This Day newspaper as saying.

Earlier this month, Boko Haram fighters attacked an army barracks in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

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Its fighters also looted and torched several villages and towns in the state after launching attacks with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

Last month, the group was accused of killing at least 29 people in an attack on a rural boarding school in Yobe.

Boko Haram has waged an insurgency since 2009 to create a strict Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

The president insists that the state of emergency has been effective, saying the militants have been confined to a small area near the border with Cameroon.

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Source: BBC

Guinea and neighbouring countries try to contain outbreak that has killed at least 59 people so far.

West African nations scrambled to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus suspected to have killed at least 59 people in Guinea, with symptoms of the disease reported in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia as well.

The spread of Ebola, one of the most lethal infectious diseases known, has spooked nations with weak health care systems. In Guinea's southeast, home to all the confirmed cases, residents are avoiding large gatherings and prices in some markets have spiked as transporters avoid the area.

Health authorities in Liberia said they had now recorded eight suspected cases of Ebola, mainly in people who crossed the border from Guinea.

Five of these had died but tests were still being carried out to check if the cases were indeed Ebola, the Reuters news agency reported. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said a total of 86 suspected cases, including 59 deaths, had been reported in southeastern Guinea near the border with Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Laboratory tests have confirmed 13 cases of Ebola in Guinea so far, the first outbreak of the disease in West Africa.

"People are really frightened. They have seen people die in a matter of just two or three days. They are constantly worried who is going to be the next fatality," said Joseph Gbaka Sandounou, who manages operations for aid agency Plan International in Guekedou.

Samples taken from those who died in Liberia had been sent to Conakry for testing, according to the Geneva-based WHO.

In Guinea, authorities have taken steps to quarantine suspected cases in the districts of Guekedou, Macenta, Nzerekore and Kissidougou.

In Sierra Leone, authorities set up a task force after the death of a 14-year-old boy who had attended the funeral of a suspected Ebola victim. Authorities have yet to confirm if the boy died of the disease.

No handshakes

Ebola was discovered in 1976 in then-Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo. Scientists have identified the outbreak in Guinea as the virulent Zaire strain of the virus.

Because people who fall sick with it tend to vomit, have diarrhoea and suffer both internal and external bleeding, their bodies are often "covered in virus", Peter Piot, one of the co-discoverers of Ebola and now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Reuters.

This means anyone in close contact with them - such as nurses, doctors and carers - is at risk, he said.

The virus causes a raging fever, headaches, muscle pain, conjunctivitis and weakness, before moving into more severe phases of causing vomiting, diarrhoea and haemorrhages.

In the southeastern Guinea town of Macenta, prices - especially for products like chlorine - have risen due to shortages, resident Mamady Drame said.

People have also started avoiding shaking hands. "Can you imagine that people are hesitant to even greet each other? That is a shocking symbol in our culture," Drame said.

In the distant capital, where there have not yet been any confirmed cases, some bank staff handling cash wore gloves and clients were encouraged to wash their hands before entering.

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Source:

Reuters