Bodies dumped in streets as west Africa struggles with Ebola

Relatives of Ebola victims in Liberia defied government quarantine orders and dumped infected bodies in the streets as West African governments struggled to enforce tough measures to curb an outbreak of the virus that has killed 887 people.

In Nigeria, which recorded its first death from Ebola in late July, authorities in Lagos said eight people who came in contact with the deceased US citizen Patrick Sawyer were showing signs of the deadly disease.

The outbreak was detected in March in the remote forest regions of Guinea, where the death toll is rising. In neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the outbreak is now spreading fastest, authorities deployed troops to quarantine the border areas where 70 per cent of cases have been detected.

Those three countries announced a raft of tough measures last week to contain the disease, shutting schools and imposing quarantines on victims’ homes, amid fears the incurable virus would overrun healthcare systems in one of the world’s poorest regions.

In Liberia’s ramshackle capital Monrovia, still scarred by a 1989-2003 civil war, relatives of Ebola victims were dragging bodies onto the dirt streets rather than face quarantine, officials said. Information minister Lewis Brown said some people may be alarmed by regulations imposing the decontamination of victims’ homes and the tracking of their friends and relatives. With less than half of those infected surviving the disease, many Africans regard Ebola isolation wards as death traps.

“They are therefore removing the bodies from their homes and are putting them out in the street. They’re exposing themselves to the risk of being contaminated,” Mr Brown said. “We’re asking people to please leave the bodies in their homes and we’ll pick them up.”

Meanwhile, in the border region of Lofa County, troops were deployed on Monday night to start isolating effected communities there.

Suspended flights

British Airways said it was suspending flights to and from Liberia and Sierra Leone until the end of the month due to public health concerns.

A second American aid worker who contracted the Ebola virus in West Africa arrived in the US yesterday in a serious condition, three days after her colleague was flown for treatment at the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. According to the charity they worked for, the two saw their conditions improve by varying degrees in Liberia after they received an experimental drug. – (Reuters)