The health emergency will apply to the west-coast districts of Forecariah, Coyah, Kindia, Dubreka and Boffa for 45 days, Alpha Conde said. Photo: Chris Ratcliffe
Guinea’s President, Alpha Conde, has declared a health emergency in the nation’s western region, where Ebola continues to claim new victims even as the rest of the West African nation is seeing improvements.
The health emergency will apply to the west-coast districts of Forecariah, Coyah, Kindia, Dubreka and Boffa for 45 days, Mr Conde said in a nationally televised speech on Saturday. It will include the temporary closing of private clinics where Ebola has been reported and provide food and medical assistance for the affected communities.
“All the deaths must be systemically tested and funerals in the zone covered by the strengthened health emergency must be beforehand secured by the Red Cross,” Mr Conde said. “Whoever hides sick or moves bodies will be pursued according to the law.”
More than 10,000 people have died and almost 25,000 have been infected in the Ebola outbreak that has ravaged West Africa, according to the US’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most of the new cases are appearing in Guinea, where there were 95 in a single week this month, the highest weekly total this year. That compares with 55 in Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organisation. Many of the cases are concentrated in a coastal region that straddles Sierra Leone and Guinea.