The West African state of Senegal became the fifth country to be hit by the world›s worst Ebola outbreak on Friday, while riots broke out in neighbouring Guinea’s remote southeast where infection rates are rising fast.
In the latest sign that the outbreak of the virus, which has already killed at least 1,550 people, is spinning out of control, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said thatEbola cases rose last week at the fastest pace since the epidemic began in West Africa in March.
The epidemic has defied efforts by governments to control it, prompting the leading charity fighting the outbreak, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), to call for the UN Security Council to take charge of efforts to stop it.
Including the fatalities, more than 3,000 have been infected since the virus was detected in the remote jungles of southeastern Guinea in March and quickly spread across the border to Liberia and Sierra Leone. It has also touched Nigeria, where six people have died.
Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma dismissed his Health Minister Miatta Kargbo on Friday over her handling of the epidemic, which has killed more than 400 people in the former British colony.
Scientists on Friday also reported that ZMapp, the drug that last week cured two American aid workers who contracted the disease in Liberia, had cured all 18 lab monkeys infected with the virus in laboratory tests.
Senegal’s first case is a student from Guinea.