Airport checks for Ebola

The regional airline ASky said on Tuesday it had suspended all of its flights to and from Freetown and Monrovia, the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia to inhibit the potential spread of the viral disease.

Passengers departing Conakry in Guinea and Lome in Togo were being screened by medical teams, ASky said.

Nigeria said it had banned entry to ASky until it could prove that all its passengers had been adequately screened. And, the private clinic where the man died was being "decontaminated."

WHO awaits lab results

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was awaiting laboratory confirmation after Nigeria attributed Friday's death in Abuja of a Liberian finance ministry official to Ebola.

Patrick Sawyer, a naturalized American, who had flown with airline from Liberia to Nigeria, had intended to travel on to his home in the US state of Minnesota. His flight had stopped in Lome, Togo, en route to Lagos.

Lagos state's health commissioner, Jide Idris, said 59 people had been identified as potentially having contact with Sawyer, including airline employees.

Hamburg undecided

The health authority in the northern said on Tuesday it was unclear whether the city's UKE university clinic would agree to a WHO request to treat a patient from west Africa.

Tackle source, says WHO

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl urged western African nations to "put the necessary measures in place at the source of infection." So far, the WHO has avoided warnings to restrict travel.

Contagion requires direct contact with secretions of a patient. Flu-like symptoms, including vomiting, can take 21 days to appear, according to the WHO.

Medics also being treated

Currently hospitalized with Ebola in Liberia are two American medics from among health workers treating patients - Texas-trained missionary doctor Kent Brantly and co-worker Nancy Writebol.

The fatality rate of the current outbreak is around 60 percent.

Unni Krishnan, the catastrophe expert of the children's aid organization PLAN urged to the international community to stop the virus' spread "before it is too late."

Already, numerous doctors and nurses had been infected, he said.

A spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Africa, Katherine Mueller, said while visiting Sierra Leone the greatest problem was to persuade residents to overcome their disbelief. Many denied Ebola's existence and turned instead to traditional healers.

Since its discovery in 1976, Ebola had been limited to remote corners of Congo and Uganda, until March when it emerged in Guinea.

ipj/kms (dpa, Reuters, AP, epd)