Ebola death raises new epidemic fears
Print Edition
A WOMAN who died of Ebola this week in Sierra Leone potentially exposed at least 27 other people to the disease, according to an aid agency report yesterday, raising the risk of more cases just as the deadliest epidemic on record appeared to be ending.
Just a day earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared that “all known chains of transmission have been stopped in West Africa,” meaning that the region was officially free of the disease after a two-year epidemic that killed more than 11,300 people.
It warned, however, of potential flare-ups, as survivors can carry the virus for months. The new case in Sierra Leone is especially disquieting because authorities failed to follow basic health protocols, according to the report. It was compiled by a humanitarian agency that asked not to be named.
The victim, a 22-year-old female named Mariatu Jalloh, began showing symptoms at the beginning of the year, though the exact date is unknown, the report states.
A student in Port Loko, the largest town in Sierra Leone’s Northern Province, Jalloh travelled to Bamoi Luma near the border with Guinea in late December.
Sierra Leone’s northern border area was one of the country’s last Ebola hot spots before it was declared Ebola-free on November 7, and contact tracing was sometimes bedevilled by access problems.
By the time she travelled back to her parents’ home in Tonkolili district, east of the capital Freetown, using three different taxis, Jalloh had diarrhoea and was vomiting, the report said. She was nursed by members of a household of 22 people.
She sought treatment at a local hospital on January 8 where a health worker, who did not wear protective clothing, took a blood sample. It was not immediately clear whether the sample was tested for Ebola.
She was treated as an outpatient and returned home, where she died on January 12. Health workers took a swab test of Jalloh’s body following her death, which tested positive for Ebola.
Ben Neuman, an Ebola expert and lecturer in virology at Britain’s University of Reading, said: “My first thought is that a hospital in Sierra Leone completely misdiagnosing a case of Ebola, apparently without sending a sample to one of the many testing labs that are being kept open for just this reason, is ridiculous — completely unacceptable.”
Ebola is passed on through blood and bodily fluids, and kills about 40 percent of those infected.
Information campaigns calling upon residents of Ebola-affected countries to respect government health directives have been largely credited with turning the tide of the epidemic.
However, safety measures, particularly a ban on traditional burial ceremonies, have faced stiff resistance at times.
The report stated that five people who were not part of Jalloh’s parents’ household were involved in washing her corpse, a practice that is considered one of the chief modes of Ebola transmission.
Almost all the victims of the epidemic, which originated in Guinea in 2013, were in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
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