Following earlier denials, Liberia has
admitted that 17 suspected Ebola patients
are "missing" after a health centre in the
capital was looted.
The government had sought to reassure
people, saying all the patients had been
moved to another health facility.
But Information Minister Lewis Brown told
the BBC that 17 inmates had gone "back
into their communities".
The World Health Organization (WHO) has
called for exit screenings on all travellers
from affected countries.
It wants checks at airports, sea ports and
major land crossings.
Several airlines have already stopped flying
to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the
countries worst affected by the world's most
deadly outbreak of Ebola, which has no
known cure.
Cameroon has closed its land, sea and air
borders with Nigeria, which also has several
cases of Ebola, reports said.
The virus has killed 1,145 people this year,
the World Health Organization says.
Meanwhile, the UN's chief co-ordinator in
Sierra Leone, David McLachlan-Karr, told the
BBC that Ebola had spread to 12 out of 13
of the country's districts.
"While Sierra Leone was the last affected of
the three Mano River countries to have
confirmed [cases] of Ebola, now it's the
country with the most cases," he said.
There have been at least 810 cases of Ebola
reported in Sierra Leone, including 348
deaths, according to WHO figures.
'Greatest setback'
In Liberia, Assistant Health Minister Tolbert
Nyenswah said protesters in the West Point
district attacked a quarantine centre on
Saturday because they were unhappy that
patients were being taken there from other
parts of the capital, Monrovia.
Other reports suggested the protesters had
believed Ebola was a hoax and wanted to
force the centre to close.
Mr Nyenswah had said that all the
suspected patients had been transferred to
an Ebola treatment centre in the John F
Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia.
But on Monday, the information minister said 17 of the 37 patients were unaccounted for.
He said the authorities were now trying to
track them down but said he was confident they would return.
"Most of the people that went into this holding facility came there voluntarily," he told the BBC.
"So our impression is that they still want to be [there], but they were forcibly removed by vandals and looters, not because they
wanted to leave; so we are sure that they will return."
He said the attack on the quarantine centre was Liberia's "greatest setback" since the Ebola outbreak began.
Blood-stained mattresses, bedding and medical equipment were taken from the centre, a senior police officer told BBC
News, on condition of anonymity.
"This is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in my life," he said. "All between
the houses you could see people fleeing
with items looted from the patients."
The looting spree, he added, could spread the virus to the whole of the West Point area.
Health workers flee Lindis Hurum, from medical charity
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), says there is an urgent need for a massive public awareness campaign in Liberia.
"Some people don't believe that it exists.
Definitely, as the situation is getting worse
and more people are getting sick, more people also start to believe it," she told the BBC.
"But they don't necessarily understand or know how they should prevent it."
MSF says the Ebola outbreak has had a terrible impact on Liberia's entire healthcare system, which it says is more or less falling apart.
Many health facilities have closed, with patients as well as medical staff, too scared to turn up for fear of catching the disease.
The Ebola epidemic began in Guinea in February and has since spread to Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
One Nigerian doctor has survived the disease and was sent home on Saturday night, said Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu in a statement.
Mr Chukwu said five other people infected with Ebola had almost fully recovered.
The death toll of 1,145 was announced on Friday after the WHO said 76 new deaths
had been reported in the two days to 13 August. There have been 2,127 cases reported in total.
Source:BBC
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