Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing positive for the deadly disease.
Radio stations in Freetown, a city of around 1 million inhabitants, broadcast the appeal on Friday to locate a woman who tested positive for the disease that has killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak was first identified in February.
“Saudatu Koroma of 25 Old Railway Line, Brima Lane, Wellington,” the announcement said. “She is a positive case and her being out there is a risk to all. We need the public to help us locate her.”
Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington neighborhood, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood samples were tested for the virus, Health ministry spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis. The results came back on Thursday.
“The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully removed her and took her away,” Tunis said. “We are searching for her.”
Fighting one of the world’s deadliest diseases is straining the region’s weak health systems, while a lack of information and suspicion of medical staff has led many to shun treatment.
Also this week, a doctor who has done “heroic” work to fight Sierra Leon’s Ebola outbreak has himself become infected with the virus.
“Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan is being treated by the French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres — also known as Doctors Without Borders — in Kailahun, Sierra Leone,” reports CNN.
The Sierra Leonean virologist is credited with treating over 100 Ebola victims. The president’s office reports that he is receiving treatment in a ward run by the international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
A 40-year old Liberian man died of Ebola in a Lagos hospital Friday after arriving in the country this week.
It is the first case of Ebola to be confirmed in Nigeria since the current outbreak began in West Africa earlier this year, according to Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu.
“All ports of entry into Nigeria including airports, seaports and land boarders are placed on red alert,” he said. “Ministry of Health specialists have been positioned in all entry points. Active surveillance has also been stepped up.”
Authorities are currently investigating all persons who may have come into contact with the deceased, who was moved directly from the airport into isolation after displaying Ebola-like symptoms of fever, vomiting and diarrhoea on the plane, said Chukwu.
Ebola, one of the world’s most deadly and contagious diseases, has killed at least 660 and infected 1,093 in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and now Nigeria, according to the World Health Organisation.