Starving Liberians: We'll Break Ebola Quarantine

UN's World Food Program has apparently stopped providing food
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 23, 2014 6:54 AM CDT
Starving Liberians: We'll Break Ebola Quarantine
In this photo taken on Oct. 20, 2014, Henry Boley is stranded because of the Ebola outbreak at a Liberian refugee camp situated on the outskirts of the city of Accra in Ghana.   (AP Photo/Christian Thompson)

Dozens of people quarantined for Ebola monitoring in western Liberia are threatening to break out of isolation because they have no food, the West African nation's state radio reported today. Forty-three people were put in quarantine after four people died of Ebola in Jennewende, a town in an impoverished corner near the Sierra Leone border, per the Liberia Broadcasting System. It quotes those quarantined as saying that the UN World Food Program has apparently stopped providing food to people affected by Ebola in the area. A WFP press officer says he's looking into the claim. Liberia is the hardest hit of three West African nations being ravaged by Ebola.

The latest figures published yesterday by the World Health Organization show the country has at least 4,665 infected people and 2,705 have died there, but the WHO suspects those numbers are under-reported. Rwanda's minister of health, meanwhile, is reversing a decision to require visitors who had been in the US or Spain during the previous 22 days to report their medical condition to Rwandan authorities daily. Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Rwanda's health minister, tweeted late yesterday that the decision to screen travelers from the US and Spain was solely her decision and not the government's; she apologized for any inconvenience. A posting on Rwandan President Paul Kagame's Twitter account said the measures weren't necessary and that Binagwaho sometimes acts first and thinks later. No Ebola cases have been reported in Rwanda. (More Liberia stories.)

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