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MONROVIA. — Two of the five blood samples sent to Lyons, France for testing were positive, refuting last week’s claim of no Ebola virus in Liberia, the West African country’s minister of health Walter T Gwenigale said yesterday. “Now of the two samples one has already died in Foya, Lofa County and the other the sister of the dead person. This sister was the one looking after the diseased when she fell sick. Blood from her, too, tested positive,” Gwenigale told reporters in Monrovia, the country’s capital city.

At least five persons suspected to have contracted the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Lofa County, northern Liberia, have been confirmed dead.

He said worries are now focused on the surviving sister of the deceased as she reportedly travelled from Lofa to Firestone Rubber Plantation in Margibi County and likely interacted with several persons along the way and those people may have been affected too.

The ministry of health last week said it has compiled a budget of US$1.2 million to help contain the spread of the Ebola virus in the country.
The money would be used to cover the daily subsistence allowance for health workers in the suspected counties, fuel and gasoline for vehicles and generators and protective gears for health workers.

Symptoms of Ebola contraction include sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash impaired kidney and liver function as well as internal and external bleeding.

Meanwhile, aid organisation Doctors Without Borders said yesterday an Ebola outbreak suspected of killing at least 78 people in Guinea was an “unprecedented epidemic” that had spread across the west African nation.

“We are facing an epidemic of a magnitude never before seen in terms of the distribution of cases in the country: Gueckedou, Macenta, Kissidougou, Nzerekore, and now Conakry,” Mariano Lugli, the organisation’s co-ordinator in the Guinean capital, said in a statement.

MSF said that by the end of the week it would have around 60 international field workers with experience in working on haemorrhagic fever divided between Conakry and the south-east of the country.

Its team includes doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, water and sanitation experts as well as anthropologists.
“MSF has intervened in almost all reported Ebola outbreaks in recent years, but they were much more geographically contained and involved more remote locations,” Lugli said.

“This geographical spread is worrisome because it will greatly complicate the tasks of the organisations working to control the epidemic.” —Xinhua/AFP.