India postpones planned Africa summit due to Ebola outbreak
A Muslim on pilgrimage to Mecca washes her hands at the Hajj Camp, Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, on September 19, 2014. West Africa intensified its response to the deadly Ebola epidemic Sunday, with Sierra Leone uncovering scores of dead bodies during a 72-hour shutdown and Liberia announcing 1,000 hospital beds. PHOTO | APIUS UTOMI EKPEI |
What you need to know:
- Almost 30,000 volunteers are going door-to-door to educate locals and hand out soap, in an exercise expected to lead to scores more patients and bodies being discovered in homes.
- India had been expecting nearly 1,000 delegates including ministers, government officials and business leaders for the meeting on December 4, expected to be one of the biggest international events in the country in years.
NEW DELHI
The deadly Ebola outbreak in west Africa has forced India to postpone plans for a December summit in New Delhi attended by representatives of more than 50 African nations, officials said on Saturday.
The spread of the virus, which has killed more than 2,600 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year, made it “logistically difficult given the public health guidelines to manage” the Third India-Africa Forum Summit, a foreign ministry official said.
India had been expecting nearly 1,000 delegates including ministers, government officials and business leaders for the meeting on December 4, expected to be one of the biggest international events in the country in years.
The government will work with the African Union on rescheduling the trade-focused summit for 2015, foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told a media briefing.
The Ebola outbreak has cut a swathe through entire villages at the epicentre and prompted warnings from the World Bank of possible economic catastrophe.
India’s airports went on alert in August to screen arrivals from west Africa to prevent an outbreak of Ebola in the country of 1.25 billion people.
India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said the country has “put in operation the most advanced surveillance and tracking systems” for the virus.
But health experts voiced worries that India’s already overburdened health services could not cope with an Ebola outbreak. They say setting up adequate isolation and containment facilities and equipping medical personnel with protective gear would be beyond the country’s capacity.
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone Saturday began the second day of a 72-hour nationwide shutdown aimed at containing the spread of the deadly virus amid criticism that the action was a poorly planned publicity stunt.
Most of Sierra Leone’s six million people have been confined to their homes from midnight on Friday, with only essential workers such as health professionals and security forces exempt.
Almost 30,000 volunteers are going door-to-door to educate locals and hand out soap, in an exercise expected to lead to scores more patients and bodies being discovered in homes.
But independent observers have voiced concerns over the quality of advice being given out, deeming the shutdown a “mixed success” in the Western Area, the region that includes the capital Freetown.
