#News: Health Care Volunteers From Nigeria Join The Fight Against Ebola

[HuffingtonPost]

By James Harding Giahyue and Umaru Fofana                

MONROVIA/FREETOWN, Dec 5 (Reuters) - More than 175 Nigerian  medics arrived in Liberia and Sierra Leone on Friday to join the  fight against Ebola, the first of 600 volunteers promised by the  regional giant which contained its own outbreak earlier this  year.                

The medics will boost weak local health systems that are  also struggling to contain other preventable diseases as Ebola  discourages people from going to clinics for fear of contracting  the fever.                

The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed at least  6,187 people in the three worst-affected countries - Liberia,  Sierra Leone and Guinea - according to the latest data from the  World Health Organization.                

"This is the African spirit you are showing, this is the  Nigerian spirit," Nigeria's ambassador to Liberia, Chigozie  Obi-Nnadozie, told 76 Nigerian medics who landed there.                

Another 100 volunteers landed in Freetown, Sierra Leone.                

Months into the Ebola response, experts say they are still  short of medical personnel to staff treatment centers.                

The United Nations said one of its peacekeepers in Liberia  had contracted Ebola, making him the third infected member of  the mission. The two others have both died.                

Sixteen people who came into contact with the peacekeeper  while he was symptomatic had been identified, the United Nations  said.                

The condition of an Italian doctor who contracted Ebola in  Sierra Leone and was flown home last month has worsened, a Rome  hospital said on Friday.                

Liberia - the country with the highest number of cases - has  succeeded in lowering infection rates, and the virus is now  spreading fastest in Sierra Leone. The former British colony  recorded 537 new cases in the week to Nov. 30.                

U.N. child agency UNICEF on Friday began a campaign to  provide 2.4 million people in Sierra Leone with anti-malarial  drugs to ease the strain on the healthcare system and allow  Ebola cases to be identified more easily. The two diseases have  similar symptoms, including headaches, fever and aching joints.                

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued an order  banning rallies and public meetings ahead of a Senate election  scheduled for later this month, saying the move was part of the  fight against Ebola.                

Amid signs of a slowdown in the epidemic in Guinea - where  the virus was first detected in March - neighboring  Guinea-Bissau said it would reopen their shared border by next  week.     (Additional reporting by Alphonso Toweh in Monrovia, Stephanie  Ulmer-Nebehay in Geneva and Alberto Dabo in Bissau; Writing by  David Lewis and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Source: huffingtonPost