Image copyright Reuters Image caption Health workers are battling to contain the deadliest outbreak of Ebola 
 
 A major West African airline has stopped flying to Liberia and Sierra Leone amid growing concern about the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. 
 
 Asky said it took the decision to keep "its passengers and staff safe during this unsettling time". 
 
 The number of people killed by the virus in West Africa has now reached 672, according to new UN figures. 
 
 In Sierra Leone, the doctor who led the fight against Ebola, Sheik Umar Khan, has died of the disease. 
 
 Government officials hailed Dr Khan, 39, as a "national hero". 
 
 The government disclosed last week that he was being treated for Ebola and had been quarantined. 
 
 His death follows that of prominent Liberian doctor Samuel Brisbane at the weekend. 
 
 Police deployed 
 
 Ebola kills up to 90% of those infected, but patients have a better chance of survival if they receive early treatment. 
 
 It spreads through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids. 
 
 The outbreak - the world's deadliest to date - was first reported in Guinea in February. It then spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. 
 
 Image copyright other Image caption Liberia tied Independence Day celebrations on 26 July to efforts to create more awareness around Ebola 
 
 Image copyright EPA Image caption Greater emphasis is being placed on hygiene in an effort to contain the virus 
 
 Image copyright EPA Image caption People have also been urged to wear protective gloves 
 
 Asky is the second airline, after Nigeria's largest airline, Arik Air, to ban flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone. 
 
 It had not halted flights to Guinea, but passengers departing from there would be "screened for signs of the virus", Asky said. 
 
 Last week, Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, reported its first case - that of Liberian finance ministry official Patrick Sawyer who flew to the main city, Lagos, in an Asky flight. 
 
 Liberia has deployed police officers at the international airport in the capital, Monrovia, to ensure passengers are screened for symptoms of Ebola. 
 
 Football ban 
 
 "We have a presence of the police at the airport to enforce what we're doing,'' said Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority. 
 
 "So if you have a flight and you are not complying with the rules, we will not allow you to board.'' 
 
 Ebola since 1976 
 
 Most border crossings in Liberia have been closed to contain the outbreak and affected communities are being quarantined. 
 
 Liberia has also suspended all football activities in an effort to control the spread of Ebola. 
 
 "Football being a contact sport - people are sweating - they do contact each other, and that could result in contracting the disease," the president of its football association, Musa Hassan Bility, told the BBC. 
 
 "It also has to do with the fans because whenever there is a game, a lot of people come together and we want to discourage gathering at this point," he said. 
 
 The association had also told football governing body Fifa to cancel trips to Liberia scheduled for August and September because "we do not want the life of the Fifa president [Sepp Blatter] to be exposed to this disease", Mr Bility said. 
 
 In a statement, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said that 1,201 Ebola cases had been reported in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. 
 
 Of the 672 deaths, the highest number was in Guinea with 319, followed by Sierra Leone with 224 and Liberia with 129, it said. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The current outbreak is the deadliest since Ebola was discovered in 1976 
 
 The BBC's Jonathan Paye Layleh in Monrovia says that public awareness campaigns around Ebola have been stepped up in the city. 
 
 Many people are worried about the outbreak, and fewer people are going to restaurants and entertainment centres, he says. 
 
 Ebola virus disease (EVD) 
 
 Image copyright Science Photo Library ||||| (From L to R) Abdulsalami Nasidi, director of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Lagos state health commissioner Jide Idris and Lagos Special Advisor on Health Yewande Adesina, speak about the update on the Ebola outbreak during a news conference in Lagos July... 
 
 LAGOS The Nigerian city of Lagos shut and quarantined a hospital on Monday where a Liberian man died of the Ebola virus, the first recorded case of the highly-infectious disease in Africa's most populous country. 
 
 Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for Liberia's Finance Ministry in his 40s, collapsed on arrival at the Lagos airport on July 20. He was put in isolation at the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, one of the most crowded parts of a city that is home to 21 million people. He died on Friday. 
 
 "The private hospital was demobilized (evacuated) and the primary source of infection eliminated. The decontamination process in all the affected areas has commenced," Lagos state health commissioner Jide Idris told a news conference. He said the hospital would be closed for a week and the staff would be closely monitored. 
 
 Ebola has killed 672 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since it was first diagnosed in February. The fatality rate of the current outbreak is around 60 percent although the disease can kill up to 90 percent of those who catch it. Highly contagious, its symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding. 
 
 In Sierra Leone, which has the highest number of Ebola cases in the current outbreak at 525, President Ernest Bai Koroma visited an Ebola center in the northeastern district of Kenema. 
 
 An administration official said President Barack Obama was receiving updates, and noted that U.S. agencies had stepped up assistance to help contain the virus. 
 
 Susan Rice, Obama's national security adviser, said in a televised interview on Monday the outbreak was of "grave concern." 
 
 "We are very much present and active in trying to help the countries of the region and the international authorities like the World Health Organization address and contain this threat. But it is indeed a very worrying epidemic," Rice told MSNBC. 
 
 HOSPITAL STAFF, OTHERS MONITORED 
 
 Authorities were monitoring 59 people who were in contact with Sawyer, including airport contacts, the Lagos state health ministry said, but it said the airline had yet to provide a passenger list for the flights Sawyer used. 
 
 Derek Gatherer, a virologist at Britain's University of Lancaster, said anyone on the plane near Sawyer could be in "pretty serious danger," but that Nigeria was better placed to tackle the outbreak than its neighbors. 
 
 "Nigerians have deep pockets and they can do as much as any Western country could do if they have the motivation and organization to get it done," he said. 
 
 Nigeria's largest air carrier Arik Air has suspended flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone because of the Ebola risk, Arik spokesman Ola Adebanji said in an email on Monday. 
 
 "RED ALERT" 
 
 David Heymann, head of the Centre on Global Health Security at London's Chatham House, said every person who had been on the plane to Lagos with Sawyer would need to be traced and told to monitor their temperature twice a day for 21 days. 
 
 The World Health Organization said in a statement that Sawyer's flight had stopped in Lomé, Togo, on its way to Lagos. 
 
 "WHO is sending teams to both Nigeria and Togo to do follow- up work in relation to contact tracing, in particular to contacts he may have had on board the flight," spokesman Paul Garwood said. 
 
 Liberia closed most of its border crossings and introduced stringent health measures on Sunday, a day after a 33-year-old American doctor working there for the relief organization Samaritan's Purse tested positive for Ebola. 
 
 Nigeria's airports, seaports and land borders have been on "red alert" since Friday over the disease. 
 
 Exacerbating the difficulty of containing the virus, Nigerian doctors are on strike over conditions and pay. 
 
 The WHO said that in the past week, its regional director for Africa, Luis Sambo, had been on a fact-finding mission to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have 1,201 confirmed, suspected and probable cases among them. 
 
 "He observed that the outbreak is beyond each national health sector alone and urged the governments of the affected countries to mobilize and involve all sectors, including civil society and communities, in the response," the WHO said. 
 
 (Reporting by Tim Cocks, additional reporting by Oludare Mayowa in Lagos, Tom Miles in Geneva, Kate Kelland in London, Roberta Rampton in Washington, and Umaru Fofana in Freetown; writing by Toni Reinhold, editing by G Crosse) ||||| Ebola virus has infected two American health workers, a doctor and a hygienist, working in Liberia. It’s killed more than 660 people in the ongoing West African outbreak, the worst ever seen, and infected more than 1,100. 
 
 It's frightening, mysterious and yes, it could come here. Here are some things you need to know about Ebola: 
 
 It’s Deadly. 
 
 Ebola kills anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of patients, depending on the strain and on where the outbreak is. Doctors say patients die from the effects of high fever, vomiting and diarrhea, but early treatment can often save lives. If patients are treated soon enough, saline solution can help stabilize them while their body fights the infection. In the current outbreak, the mortality rate’s been about 60 percent. 
 
 It Could Come Here. 
 
 No matter where you live, instant jet travel has made any infection capable of spreading worldwide, and that includes Ebola. A Liberian man carried Ebola to Lagos, Nigeria, the biggest city in Africa, by jet. He was isolated quickly but it's possible he could have infected someone else — experts are working to track down people he may have been in contact with. 
 
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 We Don’t Know Where It Came From. 
 
 Bats are the No. 1 suspect, but it is not clear how Ebola jumps from animals to people. Bush meat is one possibility — Ebola can infect apes and monkeys, and people in affected areas often hunt for food. Antelope and porcupines also can spread Ebola when slaughtered. One thing is clear — once there is an outbreak, it’s spread from person to person. 
 
 We Don’t Know All the Ways It Spreads. 
 
 Ebola definitely spreads through bodily fluids — vomit and diarrhea for sure. Doctors and nurses have been infected while caring for patients and many victims have been infected while washing bodies to prepare for burial. Ebola is one disease that remains infectious after a person has died, and so experts urge precautions during funerals and burials. One study has suggested that a man’s sperm can transmit the virus two months after he has recovered from an infection. But most doctors say people are no longer infectious after they stop showing symptoms. The incubation period — the time between when a person encounters another infected person and beginning to show symptoms themselves — is as long as 21 days, according to the World Health Organization. Doctors do not believe people can transmit the virus before they are showing severe symptoms themselves. 
 
 It Doesn’t Make You Pour Blood. 
 
 Fictionalized accounts paint lurid pictures of people bleeding to death from Ebola, and the bleeding is perhaps the most horrific aspect of the infection. But Ebola doesn’t always cause bleeding and it’s hardly ever profuse bleeding on the outside. There are many viruses that can can cause hemorrhagic symptoms — Lassa fever, dengue and yellow fever, for instance. Most usually cause vague, flu-like symptoms such as a high fever, muscle aches as well as vomiting and diarrhea. Only 50 to 60 percent of patients develop hemorrhagic complications, which include internal bleeding as well as bleeding from the eyes and sometimes in spots on the skin. 
 
 There’s No Cure. 
 
 Researchers are working to develop drugs and other treatments for Ebola, but right now there’s nothing doctors can use except what’s called supportive care — giving saline and fever-reducing medication. Viruses are difficult to treat, and the few antivirals on the market don’t seem to help against Ebola. There’s no vaccine, either. There are treatments in the works, including antibody-based approaches. 
 
 First published July 29 2014, 2:01 AM ||||| Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections.
– Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, one of the leading doctors fighting Sierra Leone's Ebola outbreak, died today of the virus in yet another high-profile casualty, reports the BBC. The death of the man hailed by the government as a "national hero" comes as Nigeria, the continent's most populous country, recorded its first case of the infectious disease, reports Reuters. The death was that of a Liberian consultant who collapsed in the Lagos airport on July 20, and health authorities have quarantined the hospital that cared for him. Meanwhile, American doctor Kent Brantly has a "grave" prognosis in Liberia as his family in Texas asks for prayers, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The 33-year-old tested positive last week. Liberia has closed its border crossings; Nigeria’s airports, seaports, and borders have been on "red alert"; and West African airports are screening passengers for signs of illness. Since February, 1,200 people have been infected with Ebola, and 672 people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have died; the fatality rate in this outbreak is 60%. Here’s what you need to know about Ebola: It's possible that Ebola can jump from animals to humans through "bush meat" such as apes, monkeys, antelope, and porcupines, reports NBC News. Once an outbreak starts, it moves from person to person. The fatality rate is 50% to 90%. Early treatment is vital. The virus spreads through bodily fluids such as vomit and diarrhea; it’s infectious when the victim shows symptoms and remains so after the patient's death. Many have contracted Ebola by preparing a corpse for burial. Up to 60% of patients will bleed from the eyes and skin. There is no cure, and antivirals aren’t effective. The only way to get a diagnosis is with a blood test, adds the Wall Street Journal.