There are fears that people who are escaping an Ebola outbreak in the eastern provinces of Sierra Leone are putting others at risk because they aren't being checked for the deadly virus. Isata Sanoh ran away from Daru, a small town in the Kailahun district in the Eastern province of Sierra Leone, where there is an ebola outbreak. She is now living in the capital Freetown, where she is staying with family members. But Sanoh hasn't been checked for Ebola and so could potentially pass Ebola to the people around her.
There is no cure for the deadly disease caused by the Ebola virus which has an incubation period of two to 21 days and starts with fever and fatigue before descending into headaches, vomiting, violent diarrhoea and then multiple organ failure and massive internal bleeding. The virus can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions. Ebola kills more than half of its victims and treatment largely consists of keeping the patient hydrated as the disease runs its course.
Combating Ebola is a matter of stopping its spread by educating people about how to protect themselves and isolating the sick and dead since corpses are still contagious - and finding out who the infected have been in contact with to isolate them as well. "I ran away from Daru because of the Ebola outbreak," Sanoh said. "A lot of people have died there and a lot of my family have died. A medical nurse who was with the dead body of her mother died. The men who buried her also died on Monday."
Ebola was identified in Sierra Leone in late May just as it was hoped that the outbreak in Guinea and Liberia was winding down. It has since spread to at least two districts with 176 cases claiming at least 46 lives. Like the other countries, Sierra Leone formed a national task force with daily meetings and set up treatment centres in the affected areas.
One of the main obstacles to stemming the disease has been combating popular fears which treated the disease as a "demonic" affair. In one recent case in the village of Sadialu, residents burned down the treatment centre over fears that the drugs being administered to victims were actually causing the disease.
The Health Ministry has also warned people that sheltering the infected is a crime and lamented that people were escaping from hospitals and hiding. The local media has also highlighted that for the first month of the outbreak, the government was reporting a substantially lower death toll than the World Health Organisation (WHO) because it was only listing confirmed Ebola fatalities, rather than suspected cases, as had been the usual practice.
On Wednesday, the WHO announced that it was changing its methodology for reporting Ebola fatalities - just in Sierra Leone - at the government's request, reducing the death toll by 32. The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is already the deadliest to date, with 635 cases and 367 fatalities, and is expected to be the longest on record, as some of the poorest countries in the world scramble to confront the fatal disease. The WHO says there is an "urgent need" to coordinate the response across the borders and is convening a meeting in Accra, Ghana, on July 1 with the three countries involved, as well as other nations that have experienced outbreaks in the past. -http://www.tvcnews.tv/article/sierra-leone-ebola-refugees-putting-others-risk
There
are fears that people who are escaping an Ebola outbreak in the eastern
provinces of Sierra Leone are putting others at risk because they
aren't being checked for the deadly virus.
Isata Sanoh ran away from Daru, a small town in the Kailahun district in the Eastern province of Sierra Leone, where there is an ebola outbreak.
She is now living in the capital Freetown, where she is staying with family members.
But Sanoh hasn't been checked for Ebola and so could potentially pass Ebola to the people around her.
There is no cure for the deadly disease caused by the Ebola virus which has an incubation period of two to 21 days and starts with fever and fatigue before descending into headaches, vomiting, violent diarrhoea and then multiple organ failure and massive internal bleeding.
The virus can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions.
Ebola kills more than half of its victims and treatment largely consists of keeping the patient hydrated as the disease runs its course.
Combating Ebola is a matter of stopping its spread by educating people about how to protect themselves and isolating the sick and dead since corpses are still contagious - and finding out who the infected have been in contact with to isolate them as well.
"I ran away from Daru because of the Ebola outbreak," Sanoh said. "A lot of people have died there and a lot of my family have died. A medical nurse who was with the dead body of her mother died. The men who buried her also died on Monday."
Ebola was identified in Sierra Leone in late May just as it was hoped that the outbreak in Guinea and Liberia was winding down.
It has since spread to at least two districts with 176 cases claiming at least 46 lives.
Like the other countries, Sierra Leone formed a national task force with daily meetings and set up treatment centres in the affected areas.
One of the main obstacles to stemming the disease has been combating popular fears which treated the disease as a "demonic" affair.
In one recent case in the village of Sadialu, residents burned down the treatment centre over fears that the drugs being administered to victims were actually causing the disease.
The Health Ministry has also warned people that sheltering the infected is a crime and lamented that people were escaping from hospitals and hiding.
The local media has also highlighted that for the first month of the outbreak, the government was reporting a substantially lower death toll than the World Health Organisation (WHO) because it was only listing confirmed Ebola fatalities, rather than suspected cases, as had been the usual practice.
On Wednesday, the WHO announced that it was changing its methodology for reporting Ebola fatalities - just in Sierra Leone - at the government's request, reducing the death toll by 32.
The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is already the deadliest to date, with 635 cases and 367 fatalities, and is expected to be the longest on record, as some of the poorest countries in the world scramble to confront the fatal disease.
The WHO says there is an "urgent need" to coordinate the response across the borders and is convening a meeting in Accra, Ghana, on July 1 with the three countries involved, as well as other nations that have experienced outbreaks in the past.
Isata Sanoh ran away from Daru, a small town in the Kailahun district in the Eastern province of Sierra Leone, where there is an ebola outbreak.
She is now living in the capital Freetown, where she is staying with family members.
But Sanoh hasn't been checked for Ebola and so could potentially pass Ebola to the people around her.
There is no cure for the deadly disease caused by the Ebola virus which has an incubation period of two to 21 days and starts with fever and fatigue before descending into headaches, vomiting, violent diarrhoea and then multiple organ failure and massive internal bleeding.
The virus can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions.
Ebola kills more than half of its victims and treatment largely consists of keeping the patient hydrated as the disease runs its course.
Combating Ebola is a matter of stopping its spread by educating people about how to protect themselves and isolating the sick and dead since corpses are still contagious - and finding out who the infected have been in contact with to isolate them as well.
"I ran away from Daru because of the Ebola outbreak," Sanoh said. "A lot of people have died there and a lot of my family have died. A medical nurse who was with the dead body of her mother died. The men who buried her also died on Monday."
Ebola was identified in Sierra Leone in late May just as it was hoped that the outbreak in Guinea and Liberia was winding down.
It has since spread to at least two districts with 176 cases claiming at least 46 lives.
Like the other countries, Sierra Leone formed a national task force with daily meetings and set up treatment centres in the affected areas.
One of the main obstacles to stemming the disease has been combating popular fears which treated the disease as a "demonic" affair.
In one recent case in the village of Sadialu, residents burned down the treatment centre over fears that the drugs being administered to victims were actually causing the disease.
The Health Ministry has also warned people that sheltering the infected is a crime and lamented that people were escaping from hospitals and hiding.
The local media has also highlighted that for the first month of the outbreak, the government was reporting a substantially lower death toll than the World Health Organisation (WHO) because it was only listing confirmed Ebola fatalities, rather than suspected cases, as had been the usual practice.
On Wednesday, the WHO announced that it was changing its methodology for reporting Ebola fatalities - just in Sierra Leone - at the government's request, reducing the death toll by 32.
The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is already the deadliest to date, with 635 cases and 367 fatalities, and is expected to be the longest on record, as some of the poorest countries in the world scramble to confront the fatal disease.
The WHO says there is an "urgent need" to coordinate the response across the borders and is convening a meeting in Accra, Ghana, on July 1 with the three countries involved, as well as other nations that have experienced outbreaks in the past.
