The spread of Ebola virus in Sierra Leone has set fear in the government, Sierra Leone President, Ernest Bai Koroma has declared a state of public emergency to tackle the worst ever outbreak and will call in security forces to quarantine epicentres of the deadly virus. Koroma announced he was cancelling a visit to Washington for a U.S.-Africa summit next week, because of the crisis and instead holding an emergency meeting with regional leaders in Guinea on Friday.
"I hereby proclaim a State of Public Emergency to enable us take a more robust approach to deal with the Ebola outbreak," he said in a speech late on Wednesday, adding that the measures would initially last between 60 and 90 days. "All epicenters of the disease will be quarantined."
Koroma said that the police and the military would restrict movements to and from epicenters, and would provide support to health officers and NGOs to do their work unhindered, following a number of attacks on healthworkers by local communities. He said that house-to-house searches would be implemented to trace Ebola victims and quarantine them.
No comments:
Post a Comment