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Ebola risk increases in Portugal if epidemic spreads to Guinea-Bissau

17 October 2014 00:28 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The risk of an Ebola outbreak in Portugal will increase significantly if the epidemic reaches Guinea-Bissau, Portuguese director general of health Francisco George said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"If the epidemic invades Guinea-Bissau the risk will be higher," Francisco George said in a press conference in Lisbon, "There was a high level meeting and we decided that the civil protection service should not be mobilized for a risk that we believe is low in terms of the probability of patients coming in from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea Conakry (...) there are nine Portuguese citizens in these three countries, all of whom have been identified and are in contact with the consular services."

No Ebola cases have yet been reported in Portugal, despite several false alarms. However, in the event of an outbreak of the virus in Guinea-Bissau, which is in the heart Ebola-afflicted region, Portugal would be at greater risk due the large number of people from Guinea-Bissau living in Portugal.

Guinea-Bissau closed its southern and eastern borders with Conakry, Guinea in August in an effort to prevent Ebola from spreading to its own territory.

The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest outbreak in history according to the World Health Organization (WHO).