MONROVIA, Liberia - President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Ebola has killed more than 2,000 people in her country and has brought it to ''a standstill,'' noting that Liberia and two other badly hit countries were already weakened by years of war.
Appealing for more international help, Sirleaf described the devastating effects of Ebola in a ''Letter to the World'' that was broadcast Sunday by the BBC.
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''Across West Africa, a generation of young people risk being lost to an economic catastrophe as harvests are missed, markets are shut, and borders are closed,'' the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said. ''The virus has been able to spread so rapidly because of the insufficient strength of the emergency, medical, and military services that remain under-resourced.''
In neighboring Sierra Leone, emergency food was distributed for a third day Sunday to 260,000 residents of a stricken community near Freetown.
The Waterloo area has 350 houses under quarantine with people suspected of having the Ebola virus and infections in the district are rising, according to the UN World Food Program. Packets with food for 30 days were delivered to the quarantined homes and to Ebola patients at treatment centers.
The rest of Waterloo's residents went to 60 centers for food. The distribution, which started Friday, for the most part went smoothly but was disrupted at two of the 60 distribution points by people pressing to get the food, said Gon Myers, WFP director in Sierra Leone.
The emergency food deliveries came as the international community ramps up its response to Ebola in West Africa, which continues to spread.
The death toll has risen to over 4,500 from the 9,000 infected, said the World Health Organization. Senegal has been declared free of Ebola and Nigeria is expected to be, but the epidemic remains out of control in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. WHO warns that by December there could be 10,000 new infections per week.
Fourteen other West African countries are seen as at risk and are being prepared, said Isabelle Nuttall, director of WHO global capacities. The United Nations has established a regional headquarters for the response to Ebola in Accra, Ghana. Director of the World Health Organization Margaret Chan was to attend a meeting in Ghana but did not make any public appearances, cancelling a press conference Saturday.
Chan and WHO have come under scrutiny following an internal document obtained by http://ift.tt/1drmXFk which said the UN health organization did not respond adequately to contain Ebola in West Africa.
A British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone returned there Sunday after treatment in London. William Pooley, 29, is to work at an Ebola unit in Freetown, said King's Health Partners, a project involving academics and medical staff. He was flown to Britain in August, where he received the experimental drug ZMapp.
Spanish officials said Sunday that a nursing assistant appears to have recovered, nearly two weeks after becoming the first person infected outside West Africa in this outbreak. An initial test shows Teresa Romero, 44, is clear of the virus, the government said. She had treated two Spanish missionaries brought back from West Africa to Madrid. They died.
