‘We need Ebola help now, not next month’ – Guinea president

When I ask the president of Guinea whether he knew anyone personally who had died of Ebola, he told me that for him, every death is personal. After all, he’s the president and these are his people.

We meet in the beige surrounds of a five-star hotel in Georgetown – a whole world away from the Ebola crisis, which has killed nearly 800 citizens of Guinea. President Conde is here to talk to the World Bank, the IMF, the secretary of state, other African leaders, to anyone who can help him to save his country.

One senior health official has described the disease as entrenched in the capital – accelerating in almost all settings – with 70 per cent of those affected dying from the disease.

In Conakry, despite hopes that the number of new cases was beginning to flatten out, MSF now reports a sharp increase.

President Alpha Condé fixes me with a determined stare and describes the second wave of the outbreak.

“In June, we’d hoped we’d resolved it. But then there was a lapse in our vigilance when a patient from Sierra Leone came to Guinea and our medics helped him without wearing the proper protective clothing.

“So now that has led to a new contamination, coupled with another outbreak on the border. We are again in the grips of a severe outbreak.”

I ask him whether his people are frightened.

“Well, it’s not only fear. Ebola is affecting our way of life. We are very tactile, very sociable people and, when we see foreigners dressed as if they are from outer space, people are afraid. But, mostly, they simply cannot understand why they cannot touch one another. Why they cannot bury their people the way they have been burying them.

“So, we still need to raise awareness as to the reality of the disease because some are still in denial, still saying Ebola doesn’t exist.”

For the president there are two key facts. Firstly, that the promises of the international community – the pledged financial support of $400m from the World Bank, and $150m in emergency financing from the IMF – need to translate into action, and in October, not November.

And, secondly, that the lines on the map – the borders between Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – count for nothing when it comes to Ebola. As long as there is Ebola in one of those three countries, he says, there will be Ebola everywhere.

Follow @C4KylieM on Twitter