The United Nations mission in Liberia announced on Wednesday the first suspected victim among its employees of the deadly Ebola epidemic ravaging the impoverished west African nation. Karin Landgren, head of UNMIL, told reporters in the capital Monrovia the worker, a Liberian man, had died last week of probable - but unconfirmed - Ebola infection. "It is a sad reminder of the ever-present risk, and sobering for us as a mission and as the UN family," she said, giving no further details on the staffer.
"UNMIL will continue to strengthen the measures we put in place to protect our staff, and to remind them to protect themselves and their families outside working hours." Liberia, the hardest-hit country in the outbreak, has seen almost 2,000 deaths, according to UNMIL, since it announced the outbreak had spread from Guinea on March 31. Landgren said the mission had taken steps since then to educate personnel and help them protect themselves against the virus, describing staff safety as her "top priority".
She described the outbreak as "Liberia's gravest threat since the civil war", referring to the back-to-back conflicts from 1989-2003 that left at least 250,000 people dead. "Prices have risen, economic growth is expected to be cut by more than half, trade has reduced, many farmers are not tending their fields in affected areas, and children are not in school," she said.