Health workers prepare to treat Ebola patients. Yahoo/AFP.
Two highly infectious Ebola patients escaped from a hospital, putting hundreds of others at risk for contracting the deadly disease. AFP. A 32 year old woman and an 8 year old girl fled the hospital in Freetown. They were not related to each other in any way. The government issued a nationwide alert and the pair was soon found in an undisclosed location and were returned to the hospital. Ebola has devastated the country of Sierra Leone, which has seen half of to total number of infections. At least 3941 people have died in Sierra Leone from the disease and the country is currently treating 10 patients.
My Comment:
Talk about stupid. This woman has put thousands of people at risk, including the 8 year old she abducted from the hospital and herself. If she is lucky enough to survive Ebola, she should go to prison. Even if you think she has the right to refuse treatment, she would still be guilty of abduction and risking the life of the little girl she took with her.
The question now is how many people did she expose and how infectious she was while she was out. Without knowing how far away from the hospital she got, it is possible she exposed dozens or even hundreds of people to the Ebola virus. The good news is that if she was healthy enough to travel, it seems unlikely that she would be very infectious. Ebola spreads through broodily fluids, and doesn't spread well until after it reaches the late stages of the disease. By the point the patient is sick enough to spread the disease, they will be too busy throwing up and bleeding from their orifices to travel. Of course, the little girl might have been sicker then the older woman, and could have been more of a threat.
Once again, the local population has been the biggest reason Ebola has been able to hang on as long as it has. At one point in Liberia rioters raided an Ebola clinic and stole a bunch of blood soaked sheets and mattresses, greatly increasing the number of infections. Even at this late point of the outbreak, people still try to hide the virus and avoid treatment. In a sane area, this wouldn't happen.
Still, it seems that the Ebola outbreak is almost over. Sierra Leone only has 10 cases. That number may go up after this escape, but the outbreak is much less serious then it was a few months ago. Liberia had, at one point, eradicated the virus before it came back for a second round, so it's more then possible that even a country devastated by the disease can recover.
Of course the fear now is that the disease will find some kind of animal reservoir. Indeed, it has been speculated that the recent return of Ebola in Liberia was due to dogs being a carrier. That hasn't been proven, but it has been proven that the disease can be carried by monkeys, apes and bats. Given how large this outbreak was it is very possible that Ebola is now active in the regions wildlife. If that is the case, it seems unlikely that the disease will ever truly be defeated in West Africa. People in the region just like bush meat too much and all it would take is for an animal to bite someone or someone to get exposed through a cut while slaughtering an infected animal for the disease to pop up again.
At the very least though, this particular outbreak seems to be in its dying gasps. Even though this woman's actions put a lot of people at risk, it shouldn't cause the disease to spread like it did in the past. The disease is in the end stages and sooner or later this outbreak will be over. My guess is by the end of this year there won't be any cases in West Africa with any amount of luck.
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