ECOWAS security heads have agreed to work together to contain spread of the deadly Ebola epidemic that has hit hardest in the sub-region.
At the just ended ECOWAS Security Chiefs Meeting in Lome, Togo, the West African security heads agreed to provide security at border areas and also ensure same at treatment and quarantine centres.
Recently appointed Chairman of Forum of Ministers in Charge of Security in West Africa, Mark Woyongo, told journalists member states will also intensify information and intelligence sharing as part of the strategy.
“We are going to send these recommendations to the Council which comprises Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Relations to look at it and pass it on to Heads of State”, Mr Woyongo, who is also Ghana’s Minister of Interior, said.
He explained that it is the duty of the Heads of State and Government to implement the strategy put forward by the security heads.
The United Nations has said nations must fast track working together against the deadly virus or “the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever.”
Death toll in the West Africa sub-region has passed 4,000 for the first time in the World Health Organization’s count of confirmed and suspected Ebola cases.
The hardest-hit country is Liberia, where 2,316 people have died. The death toll in Sierra Leone and Guinea stands at nearly 1,000 respectively, according to the WHO.
Meanwhile, the United States has recorded its second case of Ebola.
According to officials, a Texas health care worker who treated the first US Ebola victim Thomas Duncan before his death has tested positive for the virus.
Duncan caught the virus in his native Liberia and died at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Wednesday.
The health worker, who has tested positive in a preliminary test, has however not been named.
