Ebola: Guinea to deploy medical teams along Liberia, Sierra Leone border

Guinea plans to deploy mobile medical teams along its border with Liberia and Sierra Leone to take care of possible Ebola virus disease patients coming from the two neighbouring nations, an official has said.

The teams will be provided with vehicles and ambulances donated to Guinea by friendly countries as well as international organisations like the Unicef which has given the country 28 pickups, Xinhua reported.

Speaking Friday after meeting with Guinean President Alpha Conde, Unicef's regional director Manuel Fontaine said the agency had given Guinea 15 ambulances.

He said Unicef would give further support to Guinea's fight against the disease by providing protective materials and logistical means.

Guinea has received financial support of $1 million from Nigeria under the auspices of West African Health Organisation.

The national coordinator for the fight against Ebola, Sakoba Keita, said the vehicles and ambulances offered to Guinea would be deployed along the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone which extends over 1,000 km.

"The move aims to facilitate transportation of patients coming from the two countries seriously affected by Ebola, and we do not want to ban access to Guinean territory," he said.

Speaking recently in Europe and Addis Ababa where he had gone to appeal for aid to countries hit by Ebola outbreak, Guinea's Foreign Minister Francois Fall said the country had better health facilities to counter the disease compared to its neighbours which had come out of long years of civil wars.

At the same time, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has hailed the move by the Cuban government to send 165 health professionals to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The latest death toll from Ebola outbreak that was released Friday by WHO indicated that over 2,400 people had died out of 4,784 confirmed cases.