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Ebola virus outbreak

Russian plane delivers aid cargo for fighting Ebola to five African countries

The cargo of five 18-tonne containers includes protective and other equipment

© EPA/AHMED JALLANZO

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World Bank pledges extra $100 million to Ebola-hit countries

PRETORIA, October 31. /TASS/. An Antonov-124-100 Ruslan heavy transport aircraft of Russia’s Volga-Dnepr company delivered to West Africa aid cargo for fighting the Ebola outbreak there.

The cargo of five 18-tonne containers includes protective and other equipment, the aircraft’s senior engineer, Nail Basyrov, told TASS on the telephone from Abidjan on Friday.

The plane stopped at the continent’s five countries - the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa) where the Ebola outbreak’s virus strain is different from that in West Africa, Ghana (Accra) where a logistics center for cargo delivered to the countries suffering from the virus outbreak is situated, as well as Mali (Bamako), Guinea-Bissau (Bissau) and the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire. Every country unloaded one container. The aid is delivered by the Volga-Dnepr Company in compliance with recommendations from the UN Security Council.

Though the plane did not land in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, the crew took protective measures.

“We have an instruction to have a contact-free unloading. We are wearing protective suits, glasses, gloves and boots. We are disinfecting the plane every time. Those are the preventive measures,” the plane’s senior engineer said.

The senior engineer had delivered humanitarian aid to Africa earlier, and says though the outbreak’s center is nearby, at the destination airports the situations are regular.

“Everything is working, but of course protective measures are observed,” he said.

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