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Fugitive Ebola patients return

Timothy JonesAugust 19, 2014

Seventeen Liberian patients who fled in a raid on the health center where they were being screened for Ebola have returned. The WHO meanwhile raised the toll from the deadly disease past 1,200.

https://p.dw.com/p/1CwyP
Doctor for tropical medicine Florian Steiner wears a protective suit as looks through a microscope at the quarantine station for patients with infectious diseases at the Charite hospital in Berlin August 11, 2014. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
Image: Reuters

The 17 patients turned themselves into a hospital in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, Information Minister Lewis Brown said on Tuesday.

The patients, who were being screened for Ebola at a holding center in Monrovia, fled when the facility was ransacked on Saturday night. Their flight raised fears that they might spread the deadly virus further if they were indeed infected.

The looters also made off with bloody sheets and mattresses that could possibly spread infection. Their whereabouts remain unknown.

None of the patients had been confirmed to have the disease, but were undergoing screening procedures because they were at risk.

The gunmen did not believe Ebola was real and objected to people's being kept in the center. Brown said a task force would be formed to explain the risks of the illness to people in the West Point neighborhood surrounding the holding center.

World's worst outbreak

News of the patients' return comes as the World Health Organization announced that the current outbreak of the disease in western Africa has killed more than 1,200 people since it erupted in December 2013. More than 2,200 had contracted the illness over the past six months, according to latest WHO figures.

Liberia is the worst-hit of the four states affected by the current outbreak, recording 53 new deaths between August 14 and 16. Sierra Leone has had 17 fatalities and Guinea 14 in the same time period. Nigeria has four deaths, with 15 new cases of the disease reported by authorities.

The outbreak is caused by the most lethal strain of Ebola. The virus causes massive hemorrhages, vomiting, fever and diarrhea.

Transmission occurs through contact with blood and other bodily fluids.

Suspected case in Germany

German news agencies are meanwhile reporting that a 30-year-old woman from Africa has been taken to hospital after exhibiting possible symptoms of Ebola while at a job center in the capital, Berlin.

She is being examined at a special quarantine unit at the Charité hospital in Berlin (picture above).

So far, no suspected cases of the disease in Germany have been confirmed.

tj/mkg (dpa, AP, Reuters)