The World Health Organisation has shut a laboratory in Sierra Leone after a health worker there was infected with Ebola, a move that may hamper efforts to boost the global response to the outbreak in West Africa.
At least 1,427 people have died and 2,615 have been infected since the disease was detected deep in the forests of southeastern Guinea in March.
The WHO has deployed nearly 400 of its own staff and partner organisations to fight the epidemic of the highly contagious hemorrhagic fever, which has struck Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.
A separate outbreak was confirmed in Democratic Republic of Congo at the weekend.
The WHO said it had withdrawn staff from the laboratory testing for Ebola at Kailahun – one of only two in Sierra Leone – after a Senegalese epidemiologist was infected.
“It’s a temporary measure to take care of the welfare of our remaining workers,” WHO spokesperson Christy Feig said, without specifying how long the measure would last.
“After our assessment, they will return.”
Ms Feig said she could not assess what impact the withdrawal of WHO staff would have on the fight against Ebola in the Kailahun, the area hardest hit by the disease.
The WHO said in a later statement that staff would return after an investigation was completed, adding that testing would continue in the meantime at the Kenema laboratory.
The Senegalese medic – the first worker deployed by WHO to be infected – will be evacuated from Sierra Leone in the coming days, Ms Feig said.
The medic is currently being treated at a government hospital in the eastern town of Kenema.
One of the world’s deadliest diseases, Ebola is transmitted by contact with body fluids and the current outbreak has killed at least 120 health care workers.
Nigeria’s health minister said his country had “thus far contained” the Ebola outbreak.
A ‘perfect storm’ for Ebola
The man who discovered Ebola in the 1970s says the situation in West Africa is a perfect storm for the disease.
Peter Piot co-discovered Ebola in 1976 and is considered one of the leading authorities on the haemorrhagic virus.
He has told a French magazine the epidemic was exploding in countries where health services were not functioning.
He also said nothing could be done until the public started to trust the health authorities.
With its resources stretched, medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it could provide only limited help to tackle the latest outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Louise Roland-Gosselin, deputy head of mission for MSF in Congo, encouraged Congolese Ebola experts working in West Africa to return to their own country to assist with the local outbreak, saying: “MSF can’t do it alone.”
A report from the UN mission in Congo said 13 people there had died from Ebola, including five health workers.
Ministers fleeing Liberia risk dismissal
Meanwhile, some officials in Liberia, the country that has reported the most Ebola deaths, have been fleeing the country or simply not turning up at work for fear of contracting the virus.
This has prompted president Ellen Johnson to issue orders threatening those of ministerial rank with dismissal.
The health ministry has reported more than 200 new suspected, probable and confirmed cases in a three-day period. Most of them occurred in the seaside capital Monrovia, where two neighbourhoods are under army-backed quarantine.
Sierra Leone and Liberia – struggling to recover from a decade of civil war in the 1990s – have seen their healthcare systems overwhelmed.
Liberia said a ban on travel to the region imposed by neighbouring countries “is not in any way contributing to the fight” against Ebola and leading to shortages of basic goods.
ABC/Reuters