May 27, 2014 1:43pm
FREETOWN,
May 27 (Xinhua) -- Some eight ebola suspects admitted at the isolation
ward of the Koindu Community Health Center in the Kailahun district,
east of Sierra Leone, are now at large after their relatives stormed the
facility on Monday night and set them free, Health Minister Miatta
Kargbo told journalists Tuesday.
"We had wanted
to transfer them to the regional isolation center at the Kenema
Government Hospital for further observation," she said, "but their
relatives refused."
"We do not know their
whereabouts as of now but an intensive search is being made to trace
them to prevent them coming in contact with people. We suspect that they
might have been taken across the border," she added.
"Our
surveillance team reports that the relatives are claiming that the
suspects needed traditional healings instead of western medicine," the
minister maintained.
"I am appealing to these
relatives to return them to the health authorities so they will have the
necessary treatment meted out to them," the minister urged. She also
reiterated that "ebola is a dangerous disease and had no cure."
She
said that ministers and parliamentarians from the district have been
dispatched from the capital to the affected areas to "persuade and
sensitize the families of the patients on the need for them to have
proper medical treatment."
"All medical resources have been propositioned throughout the country to contain any further outbreak," Minister Kargbo said. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140527/8-ebola-suspects-freed-relatives-sierra-leone
