A Guinean opposition leader Thursday urged the international community to help monitor presidential elections due in the west African nation this year, voicing fears of possible fraud and violence.

Former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo accused Guinea's President Alpha Conde of using the country's ongoing fight against Ebola as a "pretext" for not setting a date for the presidential polls.

Guinea qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals on Thursday after a drawing of lots was required to separate them and Mali.

They will go through to a quarter-final on Sunday in Malabo against Group C winners Ghana while Mali go home.

Senegal reopened its land border with Guinea on Monday, pointing to the "significant efforts" of its neighbor in fighting an Ebola outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives.

People and goods can now "move freely by land between the two countries," the interior ministry said in a statement cited by the state-run Senegalese Press Agency.

The fight against Ebola has been given top priority in Equatorial Guinea, but it has not been the only problem facing the hosts of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

Ebola has dominated all talk of this year's competition, which begins on Saturday after earlier looking as if it would not go ahead when Morocco refused to act as hosts due to fears surrounding the virus.

The World Bank said Tuesday that the fallout from the deadly Ebola pandemic will push Guinea and Sierra Leone into recession next year.

With the disease still not under control in West Africa, the cost to the two countries plus less-impacted Liberia of shuttered businesses and curtailed investment will run "well over" $2 billion in 2014-2015, the Bank said in a new report.

Nearly 7,000 people have now died from Ebola in west Africa, with the latest report from the World Health Organization counting over 1,200 more deaths than in a toll given on Wednesday.

Data published by the U.N.'s health body late Friday showed that 16,169 people had been infected with Ebola and that 6,928 of them had died in the three countries at the center of the outbreak -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Health Minister Wael Abou Faour said Wednesday that flights arriving from countries where there is an Ebola outbreak would land in one terminal as he announced further measures to stop the virus from reaching Lebanon.

Following talks with the management of Rafik Hariri International Airport along with Public Works and Transport Minister Ghazi Zoaiter, Abou Faour said a specialized room has been established at the airport apron to isolate any suspected case.

Screening air travelers on departure from Ebola-hit countries is far smarter than monitoring them when they arrive abroad, experts said on Tuesday.

Instead of relying on a shield at their own borders, countries should help Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone boost capacity to spot Ebola cases, they said.

Health Minister Wael Abou Faour warned on Monday that Lebanon could be exposed to Ebola because Lebanese expatriates are present in countries where the virus is spread but promised measures to prevent infection cases in the country.

Abou Faour denied that the virus was present in Lebanon and said his ministry was cooperating with the foreign ministry to take extraordinary measures at Lebanese embassies in the African states where the virus is spread.

The death toll from an overcrowded wooden boat that sunk off the south coast of Guinea has risen to 18, with 20 others missing presumed dead, reports said late Sunday.

The boat went down on Friday with 61 people aboard off the port of Benty, in the south of the country, after colliding in high seas with a mining ship.