Health workers take a break at an Ebola treatment centre in Monrovia, Sierra Leone on Oct. 15. Getty Images |
UNICEF says it is doubling its staff to fight Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and in Sierra Leone, where children make up 20 per cent of all cases of the deadly virus.
Ebola co-ordinator Dr. Peter Salama of UNICEF says 4,000 children have been orphaned by Ebola.
He said Monday that schools are closed and children are confined to their homes and discouraged from playing with other kids. Salama says “death is all around them.”
His announcement at the United Nations in New York came as Sierra Leone announced that a fifth local doctor has succumbed to the disease. It is a blow to efforts to keep desperately needed health workers safe in a country ravaged by the deadly virus.
The World Health Organization says Ebola has killed some 5,000 people.
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