Guinea-Bissau reports suspected Ebola case

A man who entered Guinea-Bissau from neighbouring Guinea the day after the border reopened is being treated for suspected Ebola, a medical official said on Friday.

The traveller was running a temperature and put under surveillance as he tried to pass through the Fulamori border crossing on Wednesday.

He took advantage of lax security among border guards to escape observation and boarded a bus headed for the eastern city of Gabu, where he was apprehended.

"He had a temperature higher than 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit). It is for this reason that we have isolated him pending further analysis of his case," said Gilda Helena De Almeida Vieira, head nurse at a health post in the western village of Buruntuma.

Eight fellow passengers were quarantined, said Vieira.

She voiced concern over border controls at the busy crossing.

"We would like to see controls strengthened and National Guard officers deployed to discourage those who refuse to go through our controls," she said.

The government in Bissau repopened its 300-kilometre (185-mile) land border with Guinea on Tuesday, closed since August 12 due to the Ebola outbreak.

In November, a team from the World Health Organization concluded that Guinea-Bissau had an "inefficient health system which would not be able to cope with an outbreak of Ebola".

The country has so far seen no confirmed cases of Ebola in an outbreak that has claimed more than 6,300 lives in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.