By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Efforts to stamp out West Africa's Ebola epidemic are being thwarted by villagers touching and washing the infectious bodies of dead victims at secret burials and difficulty in tracing those exposed to the virus, U.N. officials said on Thursday. "The commonest way in which people are getting Ebola is through the rituals that take place when somebody is buried, particularly the important cleansing and touching that goes on," Dr. David Nabarro, U.N. Ebola special envoy, told a briefing. Some communities in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone believe traditional practices are needed for the departed's spirit and the society, so it is "asking a lot of them" to change, he said. Dr. Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization's special representative on Ebola, said that the 124 new cases recorded in the week to Feb. 1, up from 99 the previous week, also reflected the virus' spread to border areas near Mali and Senegal.
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