Mystery deaths in Sierra Leone spread fear of Ebola relapses
By Kemo Cham and Emma Farge
Yahoo.com
Oct. 21, 2015
FREETOWN/DAKAR (Reuters) – A poster in Sierra Leone’s crumbling coastal capital Freetown proclaims a message from an Ebola survivor called Sulliaman: “I feel 100 percent healthy!” Another beaming survivor Juliana says: “I am one of the safest people to be around!”
Throughout the two-year Ebola epidemic, thousands of West African survivors have been shunned by their communities, prompting governments to sponsor messages stressing their complete recovery in a bid to counter fear and paranoia.
But the case of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey – the first known Ebola survivor to have an apparently life-threatening relapse – has revived concerns about the health of some 17,000 survivors in Sierra Leone, neighboring Guinea and Liberia.
Doctors and health officials in Sierra Leone told Reuters that a handful of mystery deaths among discharged patients may also be types of Ebola relapses, stirring fear that the deadly virus may last far longer than previously thought in the body, causing other potentially lethal complications.
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