Guinea Consul: No Presence of Lebanese Expatriates in Ebola Infected Areas
The consul of Guinea in Lebanon, Ali Saade, confirmed on Tuesday that no Lebanese expatriates in Guinea were infected with the Ebola virus suspected of killing dozens in the African country, the state-run National News Agency reported.
“There are no Lebanese expatriates living in the highly infected Guinean areas. Most of them live in the Capital Conakry where the total number of infections with the Ebola virus are limited to 4 cases that are meanwhile subject to treatment,” said the Consul.
“Guinean authorities have joined efforts with the World Health Organization to confront this epidemic and contain it. Results have shown that new cases of the illness have not been reported in the last five days,” added Saade.
“It's normal for people to get scared and take precautions, but it is unacceptable to exaggerate things mainly that the Conakry airport continues to receive foreign and non-foreign visitors,” he concluded.
The head of Rafik Hariri International Airport, Daniel al-Hibi, issued a statement later on Tuesday intensifying control and urging all airline and services companies at the airport to report to the quarantine center on all passengers arriving from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to prevent the virus from spreading in Lebanon.
Aid organization Doctors Without Borders said on Monday that an Ebola outbreak suspected of killing dozens in Guinea was an "unprecedented epidemic" as Liberia confirmed its first cases of the deadly contagion.
Guinea's health ministry this year has reported 122 "suspicious cases" of viral haemorrhagic fever, including 78 deaths, with 22 of the samples taken from patients testing positive for the highly contagious tropical pathogen.
The tropical virus leads to haemorrhagic fever, causing muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.
No treatment or vaccine is available for the bug, and the Zaire strain detected in Guinea has a historic death rate of up to 90 percent.
It can be transmitted to humans from wild animals, and between humans through direct contact with another's blood, faeces or sweat, as well as sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.
-D.A.
-G.K.
Source: Agence France Presse
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