Ebola Spreads to Sierra Leone Capital of Freetown as Deaths Rise

Locutus

Adorable Deplorable
Jun 18, 2007
32,230
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that's it...shut the whole goddamn thing down.


The worst outbreak of Ebola moved to Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown where an Egyptian was found with the city’s first confirmed case of the disease.

The unidentified Egyptian national had traveled from Kenema, the largest city in the nation’s Eastern Province, and checked into a clinic east of Freetown, Sidie Yahya Tunis, director of Information, Communication and Technology at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, said by phone today. The person was moved back to the Ebola center in Kenema, he said.

“The Ebola disease usually spreads to other places when suspected or confirmed cases in one community move to another, they abandon treatment centers to stay with relatives or they seek treatment outside the Ebola centers,” Tunis said.

There have been 99 Ebola deaths in Sierra Leone out of 315 laboratory-confirmed cases, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement today. The ministry said yesterday that 92 people had died out of 305 cases. Cases of the hemorrhagic fever have killed more than 540 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in an outbreak that according to the World Health Organization may last another three to four months.

The toll is greater than the 280 people killed in 1976, when the virus was first identified near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. The rapid spread of the virus is largely due to people moving across borders as well as cultural practices that are contrary to public health guidelines, such as people touching the body of a deceased relative before the funeral.
To contact the reporter on this story: Silas Gbandia in Freetown at sgbandia@bloomberg.net



Ebola Spreads to Sierra Leone Capital of Freetown as Deaths Rise - Bloomberg
 

tay

Hall of Fame Member
May 20, 2012
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Maybe it's because the British went to 'help' but they haven't contained it yet..........






Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma ordered the country's entire population Saturday to stay in their homes for three days in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly Ebola epidemic.


"All Sierra Leoneans must stay at home for three days," he announced, expanding a previous order for a lockdown in the capital Freetown and northern areas of the country nationwide.


"I have made my personal commitment to do whatever it takes to get to zero Ebola infections and I call on every Sierra Leonean in every community to pull together," he added.


People will be ordered to stay home from 0600 GMT March 27 to 1800 GMT March 29, with "no trading activities across the country".


Authorities in the Muslim-majority state will lift the lockdown for part of the day to allow church services on Palm Sunday.


Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- which have been the centres of the outbreak which has killed more than 10,000 people -- have set a goal of cutting off the disease's spread by April 16.


Liberia had been on the point of declaring an end to the epidemic in the country when a new case appeared in its capital Monrovia on Friday.


The infected woman is the wife of a man already cured of the disease, an anonymous source close the case told AFP. "The situation is under control. We are investigating how she contracted the virus," government spokesman Lewis Brown said Saturday.


One of the deadliest viruses known to man, Ebola is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of the recently deceased or an infected person showing symptoms, such as fever or vomiting.


The World Health Organization said Ebola can still be transmitted in sperm 82 days after a patient carrying the virus is cured.


The worst-ever outbreak of the virus has claimed almost 3,700 lives in Sierra Leone, one of three impoverished west African nations that have seen their economies and healthcare systems wrecked by the crisis.


"The economic development of our country and the lives of our people continue to be threatened by the ongoing presence of Ebola in Sierra Leone," President Koroma said. "The future of our country and the aspirations of our children are at stake."




Sierra Leone orders three-day lockdown against Ebola




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