17 Ebola Patients On The Run From West Point

About 17 suspected Ebola patients on Saturday fled Ebola Isolated Center in West Point, thus sparking several concern in Monrovia among state authorities. The Isolated Center was hosting a total of 29 persons that the center but nine had died over the last few days after the Ebola Virus has intensified in the country. West Point, located on a peninsula which juts out into the Atlantic between the Mesurado and St. Paul Rivers is home to approximately 75,000 people and is easily one of Monrovia's most densely populated neighborhoods hampered by overpopulation and a host of diseases.

Seventeen Ebola patients in Liberia who fled from a guarantine centre after it was attacked by club-wielding youths were missing on Sunday, striking a fresh blow to efforts to contain the deadly virus. The attack on the Monrovia centre late Saturday highlighted the challenge faced by health authorities battling the epidemic that has killed 1,145 people since it erupted in west Africa early this year, spreading panic among local populations.

Doctors and nurses are not only fighting the disease, but a deep mistrust in communities often in the thrall of wild rumours that the virus was invented by the West or is a hoax. "They broke down the door and looted the place. The patients have all gone," said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the raid in the Liberian capital's densely populated West Point slum.

The attackers, mostly young men armed with clubs, shouted insults about President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and yelled "there's no Ebola," she said, adding that nurses had also fled the centre. A health ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the youths took away medicines, mattresses and bedding from the high school which had been turned into an isolation centre to deal with the rapidly spreading virus.

The head of the Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams, said the unit housed 29 patients who "had all tested positive for Ebola" and were receiving preliminary treatment before being taken to hospital. "Of the 29 patients, 17 fled last night (after the assault). Nine died four days ago and three others were yesterday taken by force by their relatives" from the centre, he said.

Ebola is spread by contact with an infected person's bodily fluids, such as sweat and blood, and no cure or vaccine is currently available. People walk under the rain in a street of the West Point district in Monrovia on August 17, 2014 .

Victims in their final days are wracked by agonising muscular pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and catastrophic haemorrhaging described as "bleeding out," as vital organs break down.

Fallah Boima's son was admitted to the ward four days ago, and seemed to be doing well, but when the distraught father arrived for his daily visit on Sunday his son was nowhere to be seen. "This morning I came and the security man told me that I cannot enter because the people here attacked the place.

"I don't know where he is and I am very confused. He has not called me since he left the camp. Now that the nurses have all left how will I know where my son is." In Monrovia, residents had opposed the creation of the quarantine centre, set up by health authorities in a part of the capital seen as an epicentre of the Ebola outbreak.

"We told them not to (build) their camp here. They didn't listen to us," said a young resident, who declined to give his name. "This Ebola business, we don't believe it." Neighbouring Sierra Leone has also battled to get patients to comply with quarantine measures as myths spread about the virus.

On Sunday, a 25-year-old patient suspected of having Ebola broke out of his isolation centre "for about an hour" before being escorted back, said health ministry spokesman Yahya Tunis. Last month thousands tried to storm the main Ebola hospital in the eastern city of Kenema, threatening to burn it down and remove patients.

Local police chief Alfred Karrow-Kamara said the panic was caused by a former nurse who reportedly told people in the nearby fish market that Ebola was a pretence for "carrying out cannibalistic rituals". Some 1,500 police and soldiers have been deployed in the worst-hit areas of Sierra Leone to prevent raids, but they are powerless in the face of the suspicion and fear of poorly educated traditional communities.

Health workers' pleas that relatives stop bathing the dead -- who are highly contagious -- have also increased suspicions, as many in traditional communities see ritual washing as a way of honouring the departed. Former Sierra Leone youth and education minister Lansana Nyallah, who lost nine of his family to the virus, tried to address myths about it head on, saying: "To those who still believe that Ebola does not exist, please take heed."

Folk cures for the disease have proliferated. In Nigeria two people died and some 20 were hospitalised after they ingested an excessive amount of salt believing it could prevent Ebola. There have also been reports in Liberia of people drinking chlorine in the hope that it will keep the disease at bay.

The Ebola outbreak, the worst since the virus first appeared in 1976, has claimed 413 lives in Liberia, 380 in Guinea, 348 in Sierra Leone and four in Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization's latest figures released August 13.

Health experts have warned that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa may last another six months. At least 1,145 people have died across Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, and that may "vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," the World Health Organization says. New figures released on Friday showed that Liberia now has recorded more deaths — 413 — than any of the other affected countries. On Saturday, a newly expanded, 34-bed Ebola treatment center was opened at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia, health officials said.

The community’s problems have been crippled by the lack of proper sanitation, public toilets. A UN report estimates that there are four public toilets in the area and while some sections of the area have paid public toilets, many cannot afford, forcing resident to use the surrounding areas to ease themselves.

Outside West Point, several communities around Monrovia are also going through tough patches. Sick patients have been pleading for more than a week to get medical teams assistance but many of those pleads are falling on deaf ears as bodies are taking longer to be collected.

Late Saturday night, the 17 Ebola suspects fled the isolation center through the assistance of several angry residents of the West Point Community. The angry West Pointers overwhelmed the center chanting slogans such as “NO Ebola, Ellen broke, she want more money; she lying about Ebola” and helped the 17 patients to leave the center.

A resident of the community, Sam Tarplah told journalists that his vehicle was partly damaged by the group some of whom are against the establishment of such center in their community.

“I am on my way to Ministry of Health right now, the people came and opened the place with force, they even spoiled my car”, Tarplah said. According to Tarplah who is a registered nurse who is managing the self-initiative isolation center early Saturday morning took journalists on a tour of a facility where the positive Ebola patients were being kept in isolation.

From a concrete fence and a building with half transparent windows, the Ebola patients are visibly seen at the center with those who are a little stronger communicating loudly. Tarplah said knowing the risk the presence of these Ebola positive patients will cause the community when they at home, he decided to keep them in one location though not in the same room.

“I have been here one week, one shouted; your bring us food”, he said, refusing to call his name. Nurse Tarplah told reporters that some of the people kept at the center at the MV Massaquoi School were diagnosed positive and told to be in isolation at home because of insufficient space at the ELWA isolation center.

He said on Friday, a lady from Bardnersville who brought food for her husband and a son, two of them Ebola positive, became angry when she was not allowed entry and as such some residents of West Point, assisted her in erecting sticks on the wall of the fence where the man and his son escaped.

The medical humanitarian group Samaritan Purse experienced similar resistance in the ELWA community when they tried to expand the treatment and containment center at the facility, forcing the group to abandon their plans to widen the scope of their work in the area.

The West Point Community is densely populated and Assistant Health Minister for Curative and Preventive Services, Tolbert Nyeswah said Thursday that the Health Ministry has planned to quarantine the entire community to prevent people from moving in and out.

“We will soon quarantine West Point, we are trying to get food and other needs before we effect the action”, Nyeswah said. As the news of quarantining the area spreads, residents have become angry over the planned action and have been threatening to resist.

On Saturday morning some West Point residents, mainly youths were remaking threatening remarks “We will not move around, your come try it, your will see; your want make money out of West Point, let see”.