Ebola patients flee after armed men attack quarantine centre in Liberia

Health workers wait for Ebola patients at a centre in Monrovia, Liberia. Seventeen patients infected with Ebola were unaccounted for Sunday after they fled an armed raid on a quarantine centre in Monrovia by men who claimed the epidemic is a fiction. PHOTO | AFP | ZOOM DOSSO

By  AFP

What you need to know:

  • The attackers claimed that there was no Ebola in Liberia.
  • They were heard shouting that president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was broke and was looking for money.
  • Head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams confirmed the patients had all tested positive for Ebola.
  • As of August 13, 2014, 413 people had died from Ebola in Liberia.

MONROVIA

Armed men claiming that there is no Ebola in Liberia have raided a quarantine centre for the deadly disease in the country’s capital, Monrovia.

The attack prompted at least 20 patients infected with the deadly virus to flee, a witness said Sunday.

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"They broke down the door and looted the place. The patients have all gone," said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack.

Her report was confirmed by residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams.

Williams said the unit housed 29 patients who were receiving preliminary treatment before being taken to hospital.

It was unclear how many are now at large.

TESTED POSITIVE

"They had all tested positive for Ebola," he said, adding that nine had died, without elaborating.

Ms Wesseh said she heard the assailants shouting that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf "is broke", adding: "She wants money. There's no Ebola in Liberia.”

Wesseh said the mostly young men armed with clubs broke into the isolation unit set up in a high school in a Monrovia suburb.

Nurses also fled the attack, Wesseh said.

The Ebola outbreak, the worst since the virus first appeared in 1976, has claimed 1,145 lives in five months, according to the World Health Organization's latest figures as of August 13, 2014.

Of these deaths, 413 have occurred in Liberia, 380 in Guinea, 348 in Sierra Leone and four in Nigeria.

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