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President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Cape Town — The Liberian armed forces have received orders to shoot any persons crossing into the country from the neighbouring Sierra Leone.
The Daily Observer reports that soldiers are under orders to shoot on sight people who violate President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s mandate which has ordered all borders closed as the Ebola virus spreads across the country.

According to the report the Deputy Chief of Staff gave soldiers a direct instruction saying he wants to hear that someone gets a bullet in the leg — that the soldiers first fire a warning shot and then burst their legs.

AP reported that an Ebola quarantine centre was looted over the weekend, causing 30 patients to flee into surrounding areas.
Despite having tracked down some of the patients, the incident has highlighted Liberia’s struggle with the Ebola outbreak.

So far the virus has killed 1,145 of the more than 2,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
West African nations affected by the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola have been urged to screen “all people at international airports, seaports and major land crossings” in order to stop its spread.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation said on Monday that authorities should stop anyone with signs of the virus from travelling, days after it warned that the magnitude of the outbreak was “vastly underestimated”.

The WHO reiterated that the risk of getting infected with the virus on an aircraft was small 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.

Cameroon meanwhile closed all its land, sea and air borders with Nigeria in a move to prevent the spread of the disease, a government spokesman told the AFP news agency on Monday.

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.

The outbreak in West Africa has already killed 1,145 and infected more than 2,000.
Liberia’s information minister said yesterday that all 17 suspected Ebola-infected patients who fled a quarantine centre in West Point, Monrovia on Sunday have been found and transferred back to treatment centres.

“We are glad to confirm that all of the 17 individuals have been accounted for and have now been transferred to JFK Ebola specialist treatment centre,” said Lewis Brown.

He also said that three infected African doctors who had received the experimental Ebola drug Zmapp were showing “remarkable signs of improvement”, quoting an assessment by the doctor overseeing their treatment.

The virus spreads through bodily fluids.
The authorities are now considering sealing off the area, which is home to around 75,000 people.

“All those hooligans who looted the centre are all now probable carriers of the disease,” said Brown. “To quarantine the area could be one of the solutions.” — AFP