‘Ebola blood’ stolen by Guinea car jackers

Robbers in Guinea take cooler with blood samples from Red Cross vehicle

A Red Cross team removes a body in Monrovia, Liberia. The  epidemic has claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Photograph: Victor Lacken/IFRC
A Red Cross team removes a body in Monrovia, Liberia. The epidemic has claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Photograph: Victor Lacken/IFRC

Car jackers in Guinea have made off with a cooler containing blood samples from suspectd Ebola patients.

The robbers hijacked a Red Cross vehicle this week and took the cooler, according to a senior Red Cross official.

"No doubt they thought it was something else," Youssouf Traor, head of the Red Cross delegation in Guinea, told Reuters.

He gave no further details of the attack, but said the robbers would probably dump the cooler once they found it did not contain gold or diamonds.

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More than 5,000 people have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus on record. Reuters