In the News this week on Ebola

In the ongoing Ebola crisis over 11,000 lives have been lost with more than 27,000 probable cases recorded.

Liberia has been able to overcome the battle against the deadly virus, however Guinea and Sierra Leone are still waging war against this unseen evil.


The situation in Guinea is worrisome, as the battle to overcome the virus has been impeded by various obstacles, including the lack of cooperation between the people and the Ebola health workers.

Secret burials are still taking place, with some cases of Ebola detected only after post-mortem testing of community deaths is carried out. 
The sick are still being hidden from law enforcement agents and health workers.

The Guinea Presidential elections coming up in October has stirred up some concern as the electoral processes with the associated campaigns bring the people together in public places which may increase the risk of transmission.
Increase in mobility due to the elections is also feared to have made the virus more mobile as people move from place to place.

Hence Guinean authorities are set to begin a 21 day quarantine in the 3 most recently affected areas in Guinea : Forecariah, Dubreka and Boké.
This is to help stop transmission and carry out house to house search operations aimed at seeking out hidden cases of Ebola.


In Sierra Leone, there have been cases of people escaping from quarantine. This has led to new cases in Freetown, the capital city where there has been no new case for more than 2 weeks.
Currently, there are about a dozen suspected high risk quarantine escapists on the run in Sierra Leone.

Concerns have arisen over sick people from Guinea or Sierra Leone trickling into Liberia via the open borders.
The decision to keep the borders open is to prevent people from secretly sneaking into Liberia without being thoroughly examined at the borders, which may be counterproductive and lead to new cases of Ebola.

A total of 20 new cases were identified in Guinea and Sierra Leone in the week to June 21. 12 of the cases were from Guinea, while 8 were from Sierra Leone.
This is a slight improvement from the 24 cases of the previous week.

Experts have said that Malaria has killed more people in Ebola affected regions in recent times. This is because the Ebola sickness and Malaria have similar symptoms.
The fear of misdiagnosis could have made people with cases of malaria avoid the treatment centres.
Secondly people also avoided health clinics for fear of contacting the Ebola virus there.
Hence about 74,000 likely cases of malaria went untreated.