The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has declared a state of emergency today, August 7, as the country grapples with an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.
Speaking on national television she said some civil liberties might have to be suspended.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), the Ebola outbreak has also hit Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, killing more than 1000 people. During a two-day meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, WHO experts who are gathering to discuss a response to the outbreak will decide whether to declare a global health emergency.
Announcing a state of emergency for 90 days, President Sirleaf said in a statement that the government and people of Liberia required “extraordinary measures for the very survival of our state and for the protection of the lives of our people”.
She said that “ignorance and poverty, as well as entrenched religious and cultural practices, continue to exacerbate the spread of the disease”.
Observers say the Ebola crisis in Liberia has got worse because many people are keeping sick relatives at home instead of taking them to isolation centres. When some relatives just drop dead bodies of Ebola victims on the streets in Liberia.
Amid international concern over the spread of the virus, US President Barack Obama said that the illness “can be controlled and contained very effectively if we use the right protocols.
He said that the US was working with Europe and the WHO to provide resources to contain the epidemic.
Nigeria’s Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu described the outbreak as a national emergency, adding that “everyone in the world is at risk” because of air travel.
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