Gabon Village Sealed Off to Contain Ebola

The government has cordoned off a remote forest village to stop an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus that is believed to have killed at least 10 people in this equatorial African country, health authorities said Monday.

“The zone is completely cordoned off,” said Obame Edou, Gabon’s assistant health director. “A team has left for the area today, and the government will not delay in releasing news on the epidemic.”

Edou could not say whether the death toll in the northeastern village of Mekambo had risen above 10, including one nurse. An Ebola epidemic in a nearby area of Gabon killed at least 66 people in 1996.

The only route to Mekambo is a rough road through thick rain forest, but reports of the deaths have set people on edge across this nation of 1.2 million.

Meanwhile, in nearby Congo, officials investigating the mysterious deaths of 17 people said they could probably rule out Ebola, which bleeds its victims to death and has no known cure.

Congo’s health minister, Mashako Mamba, said a respiratory infection seemed to be to blame for the 17 deaths there. The death toll was revised down to 17 from an earlier figure of 28.

World Health Organization officials said they too believed that the Congolese outbreak was not Ebola. “It looks like a respiratory problem, probably influenza,” spokesman Iain Simpson said in Geneva.