Ebola crisis: Liberia tracks down runaway patients as death toll nears 1,300
ABC.net.au
20 Aug 2014
Liberia has found all 17 suspected Ebola patients who fled a quarantine centre in Monrovia at the weekend and transferred them to another clinic.
The epidemic of the hemorrhagic disease, which can kill up to 90 per cent of those it infects, is ravaging the three small West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the deaths from the disease have risen to 1,299 as of August 16, out of 2,240 cases.
Besides infection in border zones, Liberia is fighting to stop the spread of the virus in the poorest neighbourhoods of its capital, such as the West Point slum where at the weekend a rock-throwing crowd attacked and looted a temporary holding centre for suspected Ebola cases, 17 of whom fled.
As fears of wider contagion increased – Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of infected persons – Liberia sent police to track down the fugitive suspected cases.
“We are glad to confirm that all of the 17 individuals have been accounted for and have now been transferred to JFK Ebola specialist treatment centre,” information minister Lewis Brown said.
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