Health Ministers holding an emergency Ebola summit in Accra, Ghana agree that travel restrictions that were put in place to combat the spread of the killer virus should now be lifted, because they actually cause more difficulty combating it.

The WHO says travel restrictions create food and goods shortages in areas where Ebola patients are found, and hamper the efforts of health workers to contain it.

“Excessive restrictions of travel and border closures will adversely affect the economies of the sub-region,” said Ghana’s President John Mahama, current chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) bloc.

“This is not a West African issue or an African issue.  This is a global health security issue,” said the WHO’s Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward in Geneva.

Officially, the death toll is now 1,552 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria, out of 3,069 infections.  But WHO officials warn “the actual number of cases may be two to four times higher than that currently reported.” 

And the epidemic is still accelerating.  Despite beginning in March, “more than 40 percent of the total number of cases have occurred within the past 21 days”.  The WHO says Ebola could afflict more than 20,000 people – almost seven times the current number of reported cases – before this is over.

The organization presented health ministers with an action plan it called a road map for stopping the transmission of Ebola within nine months, at an initial cost of around A$523 Million.  That seems quick, but the plan assumes as many as ten other countries will get Ebola cases.