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CAPE Town — The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) has reportedly agreed to impose travel restrictions on people coming into the region from countries affected by the Ebola virus.Sadc health ministers held a two-day meeting in Zimbabwe last week to hammer out a regional strategy to deal with the                                Ebola epidemic following confirmed cases of the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The meeting deliberated on how countries were managing the Ebola outbreak.

According to our Harare Bureau, a communiqué released after the meeting recommended that people entering any Sadc country from an affected country would be subjected to screening and will not leave a country for the next 21 days while under monitoring. This is in accordance with the World Health Organisation guidelines.

On Monday, the African Union said the largest Ebola outbreak in history was creating a sense of siege in affected communities during an emergency meeting.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chair of the AU Commission, said efforts to stop Ebola — like border closures and flights bans — have stigmatised the affected countries.

The outbreak began in Guinea and has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal.

Authorities say roughly 2,100 people have died during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but Ebola hasn’t been confirmed as the cause of all those deaths. — News24.