Ebola: Guinea-Bissau closes border with Guinea

Guinea-Bissau has decided to close its border with Guinea in a bid to prevent the entry of the deadly Ebola virus, Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira said.

The disease has killed more than 1,000 people since its outbreak in Guinea and spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone is the world’s worst outbreak of Ebola.

“Guinea-Bissau has decided to close its border with Guinea-Conakry from August 12 given the threat of the Ebola virus,” Pereira told a news conference late on Tuesday.

The order will likely mean the closure of official road border points, but it will be difficult to police the long and porous frontier in rural areas away from formal highways.

Governments have taken a range of measures to prevent the spread of Ebola across international borders.

Ivory Coast on Monday banned air travellers from the three worst-hit countries, while Ghana on Tuesday postponed the start of the academic year for at least two weeks at universities and colleges to allow screening measures to be put in place.