It says this will prevent further spread of the virus in affected African nations. 

The World Health Organisation, WHO, yesterday, August 19, 2014, advised countries affected by the Ebola outbreak to screen people departing at international airports, seaports and major land border points to help stop the virus from spreading, agency reports said. It dismissed the need for any further travel restrictions.

Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria have already imposed health measures at international airports, checking passengers for fever. But with long land borders often covered in dense forest, experts warn that there is little chance of controlling all cross-border movements. Meanwhile, Liberian authorities yesterday, August 19, 2014, successfully tracked down all 17 suspected Ebola carriers who fled a quarantine centre in the capital, Monrovia, after it was attacked last weekend by armed men.

Healthcare workers on August 18, 2014, met community leaders in the West Point neighbourhood in an effort to reopen the school that was converted into quarantine. Residents are angry that government brought people infected with the virus to their community. Even more worrying for the authorities is the fact that those who attacked the centre took along mattresses and beddings soiled with the patients’ bodily fluids, thereby aggravating risks of contamination.

The World Food Programme, WFP, plans to ship food to one million people at risk of hunger after roadblocks and quarantine measures were imposed in remote border areas between Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Nigeria’s Health Minister, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, on August 18, 2014, announced that four additional confirmed patients of Ebola – including two medical doctors and a nurse – were discharged from the isolation centre of the Mainland Hospital in Lagos, the Vanguard newspaper reported.