Officials in Guinea searching for a team of health workers and journalists who went missing while trying to raise awareness of Ebola have found several bodies.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Guinea’s government said the bodies included those of three journalists in the team.<\/p>\n
They went missing after being attacked on Tuesday in a village near the southern city of Nzerekore.<\/p>\n
More than 2,600 people have now died from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.<\/p>\n
It is the world’s worst outbreak of the deadly disease, with officials warning that more than 20,000 people could ultimately be infected.<\/p>\n
The three doctors and three journalists disappeared after being pelted with stones by residents when they arrived in the village of Wome – near where the Ebola outbreak was first recorded.<\/p>\n
One of the journalists managed to escape and told reporters that she could hear the villagers looking for them while she was hiding.<\/p>\n
A government delegation, led by the health minister, had been dispatched to the region but they were unable to reach the village by road because a main bridge had been blocked.<\/p>\n
‘Killed in cold blood’<\/strong><\/p>\n On Thursday night, government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said eight bodies had been found, including those of three journalists.<\/p>\n He said they had been recovered from the septic tank of a primary school in the village, adding that the victims had been “killed in cold blood by the villagers”.<\/p>\n The reason for the killings is unclear, but correspondents say many people in the region distrust health officials and have refused to co-operate with authorities, fearing that a diagnosis means certain death.<\/p>\n Last month, riots erupted in the area of Guinea where the health team went missing after rumours that medics who were disinfecting a market were contaminating people.<\/p>\n Speaking on Thursday, President Francois Hollande said France was setting up a military hospital in Guinea as part of his country’s efforts to support the West African nations affected by the outbreak.<\/p>\n He said the hospital was a sign that France’s contribution was not just financial, adding that it would be in “the forests of Guinea, in the heart of the outbreak”.<\/p>\n The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that more than 700 new cases of Ebola have emerged in West Africa in just a week, showing that the outbreak was accelerating.<\/p>\n It said there had been more than 5,300 cases in total and that half of those were recorded in the past three weeks.<\/p>\n The epidemic has struck Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal.<\/p>\n A three-day lockdown is starting in Sierra Leone at 00:00 GMT in a bid to stop the disease spreading.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Officials in Guinea searching for a team of health workers and journalists who went missing while trying to raise awareness of Ebola have found several bodies. A spokesman for Guinea’s government said the bodies included those of three journalists in the team. They went missing after being attacked on Tuesday in a village near the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":49126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[14],"yoast_head":"\n