Sierra Leone declares state of emergency over Ebola

Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency and called in troops to quarantine epicentres of Ebola on Thursday, joining Liberia in imposing tough controls to curb the worst ever outbreak of the virus amid fears it could spread beyond West Africa.

Ebola has been blamed for 672 deaths in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization. It has also reached Nigeria's biggest city Lagos, where authorities said on Friday a man had died of the virus.



In a measure of rising international concern, Britain on Wednesday held a government meeting on Ebola, which it said was a threat it needed to respond to. But international airlines association IATA said the WHO was not recommending any travel restrictions or border closures due to the outbreak, and there would be a low risk to other passengers if an Ebola patient flew..

The outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever, for which there is no known cure, began in the forests of remote eastern Guinea in February, but Sierra Leone now has the highest number of cases.

Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma said he would meet with the leaders of Liberia and Guinea in Conakry on Friday to discuss the epidemic and that he was cancelling a visit to Washington for a U.S.-Africa summit next week.