Monrovia, 21 Aug - (ANA) - Police in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, have fired live rounds and tear gas during protests after a quarantine was imposed to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Residents of the capital's West Point slum area say the barbed wire blockade stops them buying food and working. Four people are said to have been injured in the clashes. Liberia has seen the most deaths - 576 - in the world's worst Ebola outbreak, which has hit West Africa this year. A total of 1,350 have died in four countries - Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, as well as Liberia. Security forces erected the blockade following an order from President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who also imposed a curfew. West Point residents last weekend attacked a quarantine centre, looting mattresses and helping suspected Ebola patients to leave, potentially helping to spread the virus to other parts of the capital, Monrovia.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization released new figures showing that between 17 and 18 August, there were 221 new cases and 106 deaths in West Africa. A top Lagos doctor has just died of the virus, bringing the number of people who have died of Ebola in Nigeria to five, the health ministry said. Colleagues said consultant Stella Ameyo Adadevo was the first medic to order that a sick patient from Liberia be tested for Ebola when he was admitted in July. "We owe her a lot; she managed the situation like a thorough professional that she was. She had helped Nigeria to contain the epidemic in her own way," Akin Osibogun, the chief medical director at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, told Nigeria's Premium Times newspaper. Kenyan travel restrictions have now taken effect, blocking travellers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - the three countries most affected by the outbreak. Earlier this week Cameroon shut its border with Nigeria. (ANA)

FA/ANA/21 August 2014--------