Liberia takes steps to contain west African Ebola outbreak

The latest efforts come as senior western officials held meetings to assess the risk of ebola reaching their shores

A Liberian man holding bush meat, one of the main causes of ebola's spread, for sale in Liberia. Photograph: Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA

Liberia plans to shut down schools and many markets, place all non-essential public servants on leave and quarantine several communities in the most stringent bid yet to curb an Ebola epidemic that has raged for seven months across three west African nations. A Liberian civil servant who last week died after flying to Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, brought the total number of countries hit by the deadly and contagious pathogen to four.

The latest efforts come as senior western officials, including from the US and UK, held meetings to assess the risk of Ebola reaching their shores, although experts say any outbreak there is likely to be far easier to contain. Sawyer, who carried dual American and Liberian nationality, had been due to travel to the US for his daughters' birthday next month, his wife told CNN.

Several rural communities – where many view Ebola with much the same terror and misunderstanding as westerners did when the Aids epidemic began – may be quarantined, with food supplies and medical support ferried in by only approved persons, authorities said. All public facilities could be chlorinated and disinfected on Friday, and public gatherings have already been banned. The strict measures echo those that allowed Uganda to rapidly shut down an outbreak in 1997.

"It's a dire situation. The spread is overwhelming health workers and facilities. We need all the help and support we can get from the international community," Lewis Brown, Liberia's information minister, told the Guardian. He said communities most hard hit by the virus would be quarantined for as long as necessary, with security forces enforcing the plan. "It's an emergency, so we hope people will understand."

Doctors today began seeing patients at one of Liberia's main Ebola isolation wards, with up to 20 patients awaiting treatment at home. Some residents in Monrovia initially protested against a new ward being set up, fearing it would endanger them.

 The Ebola outbreak in west Africa.

Spread by contact with bodily fluids of infected patients, bush meat or surfaces, Ebola has killed 672 people since it originated in Guinea, the impoverished west African nation. Health officials took several weeks to pinpoint the origin of the disease to a remote village in the country's forest hinterlands, by which time it had spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia. Authorities in all three nations have since faced a battle to win over terrified residents, as well as curb traditions that involve contact with victims' contagious corpses.

Some campaigns have shown signs of working. Sylvia Johnson, a resident in the capital Monrovia, pulled her grandson out of summer school at the beginning of the week after seeing a government-printed poster of graphic corpses of Ebola victims, who frequently die from both internal and external haemorrhaging. "He cried, but no child will control me. It will be better for him to live and attend many more vacation schools than get sick from Ebola," she said.

Nigerian authorities also mobilised unusually swiftly, underlying their concern about an outbreak in the continent's most populous nation and major commerce hub. Police and health workers began printing information leaflets, including in widely-spoken pidgin English. The country's main carrier, Arik Air, has suspended flights between Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while international airports and seaports have been placed on red alert, and passengers are being monitored.

Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, has chaired an emergency Cobra meeting amid warnings that the deadly Ebola virus could be a threat to Britain, although health experts said the country was well prepared to deal with any potential cases.

Hammond said no British national so far had been affected by the outbreak and there had been no cases in the UK but he chaired the meeting to assess the situation.

The UK announced a new £2m package of assistance will be made available immediately to partners including the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and Médecins sans Frontières that are operating in Sierra Leone and Liberia to tackle the outbreak. The European commission said it would allocate an additional €2m (£1.6m) – on top of €1.9m (£1.5m) – to help contain the spread of the epidemic.

"The level of contamination on the ground is extremely worrying and we need to scale up our action before many more lives are lost," said Kristalina Georgieva, EU commissioner for humanitarian aid.

Wade Williams in Monrovia contributed to this story