[The isolation center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID, was being used by the Liberian health ministry to temporarily isolate people suspected of carrying the virus, Reuters reports. Some 10 patients had "escaped" the building the night before, according to a nurse, as the center had no medicine to treat them.]
The Associated Press
As many as 29
potentially Ebola-infected patients fled, the news agency reported.
"They broke
down the doors and looted the place. The patients all fled," said Rebecca
Wesseh, who witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents
and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberian, George Williams.
The attack comes
just one day after a report of a crowd of several hundred local residents,
chanting, 'No Ebola in West Point,' drove away a burial team and their police
escort that had come to collect the bodies of suspected Ebola victims in a slum
in the capital, Reuters reports. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation
ward and took several patients out, many saying that the Ebola epidemic is a
hoax.
The isolation
center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID, was being used by the
Liberian health ministry to temporarily isolate people suspected of carrying
the virus, Reuters reports. Some 10 patients had "escaped" the
building the night before, according to a nurse, as the center had no medicine
to treat them.
While the armed
attack is likely the most brazen attack on health workers trying to contain the
deadly outbreak, it is far from the first in the region worst-hit by it.
There have been numerous reports
of locals attacking those trying to stop the disease by
throwing stones at aid workers, blocking aid convoys and forcibly removing
patients from clinics. Many locals blame foreigners for bringing the disease,
saying it had never been there before they arrived.
The mistrust of
central government and help from outside runs deep in this part of West Africa.
All three countries worst-hit by the outbreak -- Liberia, Sierra Leone, and
Guinea -- are relatively fresh off decades of either brutal civil war or
iron-fisted dictatorships.
The Ebola
outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people in West Africa could last
another six months, the Doctors Without Borders charity group said Friday. One
aid worker acknowledged that the true death
toll is still unknown.
New figures
released by the World Health Organization showed that Liberia has recorded more
Ebola deaths - 413 - than any of the other affected countries.
Tarnue Karbbar,
who works for the aid group Plan International in northern Liberia, said
response teams simply aren't able to document all the erupting Ebola cases.
Many of the sick are still being hidden at home by their relatives, who are too
fearful of going to an Ebola treatment center.
Others are being
buried before the teams can get to remote areas, he said. In the last several
days, about 75 cases have emerged in Voinjama, a single Liberian district.
"Our
challenge now is to quarantine the area (in Voinjama) to successfully break the
transmission," he said.
There is no cure
or licensed treatment for Ebola and patients often die gruesome deaths with
external bleeding from their mouths, eyes or ears. The killer virus is
transmitted through bodily fluids like blood, sweat, urine and diarrhea. A
handful of people have received an experimental drug whose effectiveness is
unknown.
Liberia's
assistant health minister, Tolbert Nyenswah, said three people in Liberia were
receiving the ZMapp on Friday. Previously, only two Americans and a Spaniard
had gotten it. The Americans
are improving, but it is not known what role ZMapp played. The
Spaniard died.
The American
doctor infected with Ebola while working in Liberia said Friday he is
"recovering in every way" and holding onto the hope of a reunion with
his family.
Dr. Kent Brantly
remained hospitalized Friday at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. His
comments came in a statement issued through the Christian aid group Samaritan's
Purse.
The World Health
Organization has approved the use
of such untested drugs but their supply is extremely limited.
The U.N. health
agency has said the focus on containing the outbreak should be on practicing
good hygiene and quickly identifying the sick and isolating them. That task is
made harder, however, by the shortage of treatment facilities.
Beds in such
centers are filling up faster than they can be provided, evidence that the
outbreak in West Africa is far more severe than the numbers show, said Gregory
Hartl, a spokesman for World Health Organization in Geneva.
There are 40 beds
at one treatment center that Doctors Without Borders recently took over in one
quarantined county in Liberia. But 137 people have flocked there, packing the
hallways until they can be sorted into those who are infected and those are
not, said Joanne Liu, the group's international president.
Nyenswah
described a similar situation in a treatment center in Liberia's capital of
Monrovia: In one ward meant to accommodate up to 25 people, 80 are now crowded
in. Another treatment center with 120 beds is expected to open Saturday outside
Monrovia.
"It's
absolutely dangerous," said Liu, who recently returned from Guinea,
Liberia and Sierra Leone. "With the massive influx of patients that we had
over the last few days, we're not able to keep zones of patients anymore.
Everybody is mixed."
Liu likened the
situation to a state of war because the "frontline" was always moving
and unpredictable. She said the outbreak could last six more months.
The death toll is
now 1,145 people in four countries across West Africa, according to figures
released Friday by the World Health Organization. At least 2,127 cases have been
reported in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, WHO said.
Sierra Leone's
president, Ernest Bai Koroma, told journalists Friday that the country has lost two doctors
and 32 nurses to Ebola.
"We need
specialized clinicians and expertise and that is why we are appealing to the
international community for an enhanced response to our fight" against
Ebola, he said.
The Ebola crisis
is also disrupting food supplies and transportation. Some 1 million people in
isolated areas could need food assistance in the coming months, according to
the U.N. World Food Program, which is preparing a regional emergency operation.
Amid a growing
number of airline cancellations, the U.N. will start flights for humanitarian
workers on Saturday to ensure that aid operations aren't interrupted. In the
coming weeks, they will also ferry staff to remote areas by helicopter.
@ CBS News
