The Chinese Embassy in Liberia has pitched in enough drugs to treat an outbreak of the deadly lassa fever virus that the Liberian authorities had said they were powerless to stop.

A virus transmitted by rodents, lassa fever kills up to 5,000 people ever year in West Africa. It broke-out in Nimba county northern Liberia in September, quickly killing off seven of ten people diagnosed with it. Liberia’s health ministry does not have any more recent information.

Liberian health officials contacted by IRIN in September said they were short of drugs to treat people infected with lassa fever, and the United Nations warned that the country’s ramshackle health infrastructure was not able to cope with an infectious disease.

But on Thursday, officials at the Chinese Embassy in Monrovia told IRIN they would be providing enough drugs to control the outbreak, following an emergency request from the Liberian health minister.

"The total consignment is three hundred treatment medicines that can be used to treat three hundred lassa fever patients," a Chinese embassy official told IRIN.

The same official said China is also donating drugs to treat malaria, and has provided medical equipment to hospitals in the capital. A nine-specialist team has been providing free treatment at the John F. Kennedy hospital in Monrovia.

Some 18 officials and technicians at the Liberian health ministry have also undergone training in China in malaria treatment and the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, the official said.

According to Liberia's National Human Development Report released in August over 95 per cent of the 325 health facilities that operated before Liberia’s 14-year civil war were either completely or partially destroyed in the war. Rural health facilities were worst affected.

The same report revealed that by the time the war ended in 2003, there were less than 20 Liberian doctors left in the country. By the end of 2005, only 14 extra doctors had been trained, bringing the total to 34 doctors.