Liberia records 97 Ebola contacts

Liberia’s health officials say 97 Ebola contacts including 15 health workers have been recorded, while three confirmed Ebola patients receiving medications in Ebola Treatment Unit or ETU.

This latest infection here is said to have resulted from an unnamed 30-year-old woman, who reportedly transported the virus from neighboring Guinea on March 21 before she and two of her kids began showing symptoms in Liberia.

Montserrado County Health Officer Doctor YattaSackieWahpoe told Truth FM 96.1 in Paynesville Wednesday, 6 April of the 97 Ebola contacts, while also disclosing that three confirmed cases linked to the lady from Guinea are in ETU.

“So they are currently in the ETU [Ebola Treatment Unit] and they are doing extremely well. So as I speak to you, we currently have 97 contacts. All of these contacts have been line-listed; and then we have contact tracers visiting them both morning and evening to ascertain that they don’t [have] signs and symptoms of the disease,” Doctor Wahpoe says.

After arriving here from Guinea, she narrated the lady’s five-year-old son began showing signs and symptoms on March 31, before his two-year-old brother, who was also confirmed positive on Tuesday, 5 April.

She said the lady left from the Soul Clinic Community of Paynesville where the victim was first seen after entering Liberia in March before later moving to the S.K.D. Boulevard Community where she developed signs and symptoms of the disease.

“When she got sick here”, Doctor Wahpoe continued, “she was taken to the Ma Watta Kamara Clinic in the Jacob Town Community along Somalia Drive where she reportedly died.” She said the 15 health care workers who are currently line-listed are “under voluntary precautionary observation” while being taken care of as per the ministry’s protocol, while the clinic has been temporarily shut down and disinfected, pending a 21-day observation period.

She has however assured Liberians that government is up to the task to stop the current infection, saying health workers are trained and understand the disease. The Health Ministry’s Communications Director Sorber George, says the woman came to Liberia at the time the border with Guinea was closed.

“So we are still trying to investigate as to how she came in; as to how she transported the virus to our country – we are still investigating. But it is established that the source of this new infection is from Guinea.”

Mr. George says the Health Ministry does not want the public to be afraid on grounds that the country now has the capacity, but advised people should continue preventive measures such as washing of hands regularly with soap and clean water, not playing with the sick people and, dead bodies, among others.

By Winston W. Parley-Editing by Jonathan Browne