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Ghana has not ruled out the possibility of a blanket ban on the buying and selling of local delicacy bushmeat believed to carry the deadly Ebola virus as a means of curtailing the spread of the disease. The Head of Disease Control and Prevention Department of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Akwasi Kyei-Faried, disclosed this in Accra. He was presenting a Technical Update on Ebola at a Special Media Engagement on the disease on Thursday. EVD was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976 and has since then affected countries further east, including Uganda and Sudan and other Central African states. Its outbreak in West Africa started from Nzerekore, a remote area of south-eastern Guinea and has gradually spread to the capital, Conakry and neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone. A WHO report on the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) indicates that as at 9th August this year, a total of 1848 Ebola cases have been reported with 1013 deaths recorded in the sub-region. So far, 45 cases have been tested in Ghana and thankfully, all the results have proved negative. EVD is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals, especially fruitbats or people, and severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. Earlier this week, government outlined measures it plans to take to prevent an outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Ghana, including screening people that arrive in the country, especially from countries that have recorded cases, after a high-level inter-ministerial Action Group Meeting at the Flagstaff House. It also announced the setting up of Ebola treatment centres in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale to cater for the infected, in the event that the disease somehow finds its way into the country. Dr Kyei-Faried stressed that the Ghana Health Service will in the coming days intensify its public education on the Ebola disease. He further stated that frontline staff at various health facilities nationwide, as well as officials at the country's border posts, are being sensitised to identify suspected Ebola cases and isolating victims. According to him, health experts drawn from the WHO, will be in the country next week to take officials in Ghana through an elaborate training programme to effectively handle Ebola cases in the event of a confirmed case. Touching on the demands by doctors at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for an insurance cover from the government as condition for treating any Ebola case referred to the hospital, Dr Kyei-Faried said it�s a �legitimate demand�. According to him, a medical insurance and risk allowance package for health workers would also psychologically prepare and motivate those who will handle Ebola cases, should the disease break out in the country, to risk their lives for others. ��without any incentive, no health official will attend to Ebola cases�it�s a legitimate demand�and it must be done�without any form of incentive, treating Ebola cases in Ghana will be a huge problem�,� he said.