Town suspends Ebola treatment

Associated Press

GENEVA — International health experts forced to pull out of a remote Gabonese town struck by Ebola met Friday with local officials to discuss security and how to resume their work to keep the disease from spreading.

The 17-member international team and Gabonese health ministry officials left the jungle town of Mekambo on Tuesday because of threats from residents. The outbreak has so far killed 25 people.

Tension has been high in Mekambo and surrounding villages, where many blame outsiders for the difficulties they have had since the outbreak began in Gabon and neighboring Republic of Congo. Rumors are rife that witchcraft and vampires rather than Ebola have caused the deaths.

Efforts by the international team to halt traditional burial practices — such as washing corpses, which increases the risk of spreading the virus — also fed local hostility.

"It can be a question of suspending usual practices — or dying," World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl said. "It comes down to that."

Hartl said a representative of the U.N. health agency, the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and the Gabonese health ministry met Friday in Mekambo, 465 miles northeast of the Gabonese capital, Libreville, to discuss security.

The international Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said an international team could return as early as today, but Hartl said no decision has yet been made.

"If the physical safety of all the team members isn’t adequate, then we can’t ensure proper support for the people of Mekambo," he said.

Local Red Cross volunteers have succeeded in dispelling some of the mistrust of outsiders, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in its statement Friday.

Ebola is one of the most deadly viral diseases, killing between 50 percent and 90 percent of those who contract it. It spreads through bodily fluids and attacks internal organs, causing bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Within two weeks, the victim usually dies from massive blood loss.

Hartl said WHO was worried about being unable to monitor the more than 200 people who had been in contact with Ebola sufferers. Daily surveillance for symptoms is vital to containing the disease.