KAMPALA, June 8 -- At the Mpondwe crossing between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the gate that families, traders and medical referrals pass through every day has been shut for nearly two weeks. On Monday the head of the World Health Organization stood inside an Ebola isolation ward in Uganda's capital and asked the government to open it again.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director general, said the border closure Uganda ordered in late May does little to stop the virus and a great deal to weaken the response to it. Blanket travel restrictions are ineffective, he said, and they discourage the transparency that saves lives. "I hope they reconsider," he said of Uganda's authorities. In nearly the same breath he prais...