DHAKA: Nurses at Liberia’s largest hospital went on strike, demanding better pay and equipment to protect them against a deadly Ebola epidemic which has killed hundreds in the west African nation.

John Tugbeh, spokesman for the strikers at Monrovia’s John F Kennedy hospital, said the nurses would not return to work until they are supplied with ‘personal protective equipment (PPEs)’, the hazmat-style suits which guard against infectious diseases.

‘From the beginning of the Ebola outbreak we have not had any protective equipment to work with. As result, so many doctors got infected by the virus. We have to stay home until we get the PPEs,’ he said, The Straits Times publishes this report on Tuesday.

The Ebola virus, transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids, has killed more than 1,500 people in four countries since the start of the year, almost 700 of them in Liberia.

BDST: 1222 HRS, SEP 01, 2014