Ebola deaths in Africa top 200 as outbreak spreads to 10 countries

[Financial News] The number of deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the Ebola virus, has surpassed 200.
According to AFP on the 23rd local time, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo said in a report that there were 867 suspected cases in the latest Ebola outbreak, of which 204 people had died.
The previous day, the World Health Organization (WHO) had put the number of suspected Ebola deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 177. The WHO said the virus was spreading rapidly in the country and raised the national risk level from "high" to "very high."
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the outbreak has put 10 countries at risk, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Angola, Burundi and the Central African Republic. It said that frequent movement of people in the region and unstable security conditions are fueling the spread of the disease.
Tensions are rising in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where public health capacity is already weak and the country is the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak. According to AP, residents angry over government restrictions set fire to a tent clinic in Mongbwalu in the east, destroying it completely. No one was injured in the attack, but 18 suspected patients fled in the confusion as they ran from the flames. Earlier, on the 21st, residents in Lwampala village also grew angry after being barred from collecting family bodies, which led to a fire at a clinic.
Meanwhile, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on the day that three volunteers listed among the Ebola dead appear to have been infected while carrying out their duties in the field around March 27. If the IFRC's account is correct, the start of the outbreak would be about a month earlier than previously known. Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo say the first death occurred in late April in Ituri Province in the northeast.
Countries are tightening border controls to block the entry of Ebola.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on the day that it had added Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport as a designated quarantine airport. The United States requires people who have stayed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda or South Sudan within the past 21 days to enter only through designated quarantine airports. At these airports, enhanced measures are in place, including reporting illness status on board and post-arrival monitoring. Earlier, the United States temporarily suspended visa issuance for foreigners who had visited outbreak areas, and it also restricted re-entry for green card holders if they had traveled to those regions.
In the United Kingdom, a monitoring program is being run to track the routes of travelers entering the country from Ebola-affected nations and to protect the health of citizens traveling to infected areas.
International health organizations say the high positivity rate in early testing and the continued rise in suspected cases suggest the actual scale of Ebola infections may be far larger than official figures indicate.
whywani@fnnews.com Hong Chaewan Reporter