NewsTracker Answers for week of Sep. 22, 2014

Q: President Obama is sending up to 3,000 troops to West Africa, where, a Liberian official says of the Ebola epidemic, "We are at war with an enemy that we don't see." Where is Liberia?

Circle the area on this map

Q: A U.S. military command center will be set up in the capital of Liberia to support civilian public health efforts in the region.  What is the capital of Liberia?

A. Abuja

B. Conakry

C. Freetown

D. Monrovia

D. A Monrovia slum was the site of violent clashes last month after an Ebola quarantine in the nation hardest hit by the epidemic. Abuja is the capital of Nigeria; Conakry is the capital of Guinea; and Freetown is the capital of Sierra Leone. All of these nations have reported deaths from the Ebola outbreak.

Q: Eight health workers and journalists  involved in an Ebola campaign were slain by suspicious villagers last week in Guinea. Guinea is on Liberia's . . .

A. Northern border

B. Eastern border

C. Southern border

D. Western border

A. Liberia is bordered by Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, Sierra Leone to its west and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. The first Ebola cases in this outbreak were reported in Gueckedou in Guinea, on the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone last week imposed a three-day curfew to let health workers find and isolate cases of Ebola.

Q: While Liberia has reported more than 1,400 deaths, Nigeria recorded only eight deaths up to Sept. 14. The nation of Nigeria is Africa's . . .

A. Largest by area

B. Largest by population

C. Poorest

D. All of the above

B. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa" because of its population of 177 million and the largest economy on the continent. The Ebola outbreak in Nigeria was traced to a traveler from Liberia.

Q: Another strain of Ebola caused an outbreak in the Central African nation of the . . .

A. Republic of Kenya

B. Republic of Madagascar

C. Democratic Republic of Congo

D. United Republic of Tanzania

C. At least 40 people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in an outbreak that is not connected to the one in West Africa – the worst Ebola epidemic ever with more than 2,600 deaths.