Thousands of tourists have cancelled planned trips to the Africa following the outbreak of Ebola, including destinations thousands of miles from the nearest infected community such as Kenya and South Africa.
The bulk of the cancellations are from Asia but visitors from the US, Brazil and Europe have also cancelled plans or delayed trips, according to tour operators in Africa and Asia.
A Brazilian business delegation this month also cancelled a trip to Namibia, in southern Africa.
"We've seen a huge amount of cancellations from Asia and the groups that do travel, the numbers have dropped," said Hannes Boshoff from Johannesburg-based ERM Tours, a company which organises travel to countries in southern Africa.
He said around 80% of his Asian customers had cancelled trips coming up in the next 2-3 months.
"A lot of consumers just see Africa. They see it as one country ... I try and tell people that Europe and America are closer to the Ebola outbreak than South Africa," Mr Boshoff said.
Team sent to Congo region
Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo has sent its health minister and a team of experts to the remote northern Equateur province after several people died there from a disease with Ebola-like symptoms.
It was not immediately clear if there was any connection with Ebola.
"An illness is spreading in Boende but we don't know the origin," said Michel Wangi, a spokesman for the governor's office.
"The government has sent a team of experts from the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) this morning led by the health minister Felix Kabange Numbi and acting governor Sebastian Impeto."
A professor accompanying the delegation in the presidential plane confirmed that they were en route this morning to find out "the exact nature of the illness that caused the Boende deaths".
A local who asked not to be named said that around ten people had died, including four health care workers, after suffering from fever, diarrhoea and bleeding from the ears and nostrils - all symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus.
Ebola can kill up to 90% of its victims.
There is no known vaccine and the few forms of treatment that exist are experimental.
Congo does not share a border with any of the countries affected by the virus in West Africa.
But the country has seen several outbreaks since the first case was detected near the Ebola River in northern Congo in 1976.
Civil unrest in Monrovia
Police in the Liberian capital of Monrovia have fired tear gas to disperse crowds attempting to leave a neighbourhood placed under quarantine because of the Ebola virus.
Liberian authorities introduced a nationwide curfew on Tuesday and put the neighbourhood, West Point, under quarantine.
The rundown area has been hit by Ebola, which has killed more than 1,200 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and five in Nigeria.
There were no injuries reported in the clash which witnesses said started after security forces blocked roads to the neighbourhood with tables, chairs and barbed wire.
Residents said they were given no warning of the blockade, which prevented them from getting to work or buying food.
A crowd at West Point looted a temporary holding centre for suspected Ebola cases at the weekend, 17 of whom fled.
All 17 were now accounted for and being treated at another centre, the Liberian government said.
