Eight Chinese quarantined in Ebola-hit Sierra Leone

A health inspection and quarantine researcher (left) demonstrating to customs policemen the symptoms of Ebola, at a laboratory at an airport in Qingdao, in China's Shandong province on August 11, 2014. China's quarantine authority has ordered stepped
A health inspection and quarantine researcher (left) demonstrating to customs policemen the symptoms of Ebola, at a laboratory at an airport in Qingdao, in China's Shandong province on August 11, 2014. China's quarantine authority has ordered stepped-up inspections at customs to prevent the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed nearly 1,000 people in West Africa, from entering the country. Eight Chinese medical workers who treated patients suffering from Ebola have been placed in quarantine in West Africa's Sierra Leone. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

FREETOWN (AFP) - Eight Chinese medical workers who treated patients suffering from the deadly Ebola virus have been placed in quarantine in Sierra Leone, the Chinese ambassador in Freetown said Monday.

"Six Chinese doctors and one nurse as well as five local nurses treated an Ebola patient at the Jui Hospital who later died of the virus," said ambassador Zhao Yanbo.

"All of them who came in contact with the patient have been quarantined for the past two weeks under observation while the hospital has been fumigated and closed temporarily."

Mr Yanbo said another Chinese doctor who treated an Ebola patient at the Kingharman Road Hospital had also been quarantined.

Sierra Leone is one of the worst-hit nations with 298 deaths in the outbreak which has claimed at least 932 lives in four west African nations, and infected more than 1,700 people, according to the World Health Organisation.

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