-- A nurse in Nigeria. A businessman in
Saudi Arabia. A Spanish priest in Liberia.
With the World Health Organization announcing
Wednesday that 932 deaths had been reported
or confirmed as a result of Ebola hemorrhagic
fever, Saudi Arabia joined the list of countries
with suspected cases.
"This is the biggest and most complex Ebola
outbreak in history," Dr. Tom Frieden, director
of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said.
Nearly all of those deaths have been in Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Guinea, where more than
1,700 cases have been reported, according to
WHO. The agency said 108 new cases were
reported between Saturday and Monday in
those countries and Nigeria.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has
declared a state of emergency for 90 days
because of the deadly outbreak, her office
announced Wednesday.
"The scope and scale of the
epidemic, the virulence and
deadliness of the virus now exceed
the capacity and statutory
responsibility of any one government
agency or ministry," she said in a
written statement. "The government
and people of Liberia require
extraordinary measures for the very
survival of our state and for the
protection of the lives of our people."
She said Ebola is a "clear and present
danger."
Concerns about the spread of the
deadly virus escalated with Saudi
Arabia reporting that a man died,
apparently of the virus, after a trip to
Sierra Leone, and Nigeria reported
that a nurse died after treating
someone believed to have contracted
Ebola in Liberia.
WHO did not immediately confirm
the deaths, and its count of Ebola cases does
not include the two.
The Saudi man died Wednesday at a specialized
hospital in Jeddah, the Saudi Ministry of Health
said.
He had been in intensive care since late Monday
"after exhibiting symptoms of viral hemorrhagic
fever following a business trip to Sierra Leone,"
the ministry said in a statement.
The nurse in Nigeria had helped care for Patrick
Sawyer, a Liberian-American man, who died in
Nigeria after traveling there from Liberia,
Nigeria's Ministry of Health said Wednesday.