EBOLA SPREADS RAPIDLY IN SIERRA LEONE, NINE TIMES FASTER THAN 2MONTHS AGO[SEE PHOTOS]

 Cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone are still rising quickly, campaigners have warned. In rural parts of the country, the virus is spreading nine times faster than two months ago, a report from the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) found. The news comes as the World Health Organisation (WHO) advised that the number of new cases of the disease is levelling off.

Nick Thompson, AGI's chief executive, told BBC news:

'What we're seeing is a varied picture across the country. There are areas where it's still going up quite dramatically. Particularly in the western area, the rural areas, the area around and behind Freetown on the western peninsula.

That's where you're seeing quite dramatic rises in cases, up to nine times more per day than two months ago. It's a very mixed picture, it's a changing situation within and across the country. It's still very much an acute crisis, there's no room for complacency even if response steps up.'

 

Mail Online reports that the spread of the disease has only started to slow down in one area of Sierra Leone: Bombali, in the country's north, the report said. Mr Thompson added that the AGI did find that reports rates of the disease plateauing in Liberia, but they are not certain why.

Being able to get bodies buried 'safely, promptly and with dignity' is going to be one of the key ways of breaking the chain of transmission, he added. He said that burial management has 'improved significantly' in Liberia and Sierra Leone, with an increased number of bodies buried in 24 hours.

Currently more than half of all infections of the virus are transmitted through dead bodies, because of local customs which involve washing the bodies of people who have died. Ebola is spread through blood or body fluids, including urine, saliva, sweat, faeces, vomit, breast milk, and semen of a person who is sick with Ebola

At the end of October the WHO said there had been 13,567 cases since the outbreak began. Today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned against 'unnecessarily' strict restrictions on the movement of health workers coming from West Africa.

Canada and Australia have barred entry for citizens from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, while some U.S. states have imposed quarantines on health workers returning from these countries.