It's gone from bad (Mapping Africa's "Totally Out Of Control" Ebola Epidemic [3]) to worse, (Head Doctor Fighting Africa's "Out Of Control" Ebola Epidemic Contracts The Virus [4]), to much worse (Liberian Man Tested For Ebola In World's Fourth Most Populous City [5]), to having run out of comparaitves - although we are leery of using a superlative just yet as we have a feeling Africa's Ebola's epidemic will deteriorate before it gets better. But the latest news is bad enough: as Reuters reported moments ago [6], Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing positive for the deadly disease.
[7]
How big is Sierra Leone's capital Freetown: just around 1 million inhabitants, so yes, things are suddenly very much uncontained.
More:
Radio stations in Freetown broadcast the appeal on Friday to locate a woman who tested positive for the disease that has killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak was first identified in February.
"Saudatu Koroma of 25 Old Railway Line, Brima Lane, Wellington," the announcement said. "She is a positive case and her being out there is a risk to all. We need the public to help us locate her."
Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington neighborhood, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood samples were tested for the virus, Health ministry spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis. The results came back on Thursday.
"The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully removed her and took her away," Tunis said. "We are searching for her."
What is just as bad is that even without this latest shocking development, the death toll from the epidemic has already hit 660 according to the WHO, cited by AFP [8].
And now we await news out of the world's fourth largest city, Nigeria's capital Lagos, where a man collapsed at the airport and is now being tested whether he too had Ebola, and we are confused how the market is not trading at fresh all time highs following what is now a recreation of the plot of the movie Outbreak. Just consider how much GDP was created or not destroyed there.
