Withdrawal Of International Medics Exacerbating Ebola Crisis

 

Liberia’s efforts to control deadly epidemic being hampered by local mistrust as two infected US health workers return home

The withdrawal of some international medics from Liberia following the infection of two US health workers with the Ebola virus has exacerbated the healthcare crisis caused by the epidemic.

 

The overcrowded and understaffed Elwa hospital in the capital, Monrovia, where Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol worked, has been forced to turn away some Ebola cases. The virus, which is highly contagious and fatal in more than half of the cases in the current outbreak, has killed more than 700 people in west Africa.

 

On Sunday, US health authorities said Brantly’s condition was improving after his return to the US, where he is being treated by infectious disease specialists at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

 

“It’s encouraging that he seems to be improving – that’s really important – and we’re hoping he’ll continue to improve,” Tom Frieden, director of the Atlanta-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told US television.

 

Writebol will be brought to the US on a later flight as the medical aircraft is equipped to carry only one patient at a time.

 

In Monrovia, the government said high levels of mistrust among citizens justified a series of strict new measures designed to control the outbreak.

 

Liberia plans to close schools and consider quarantining some communities as part of an action plan outlined this week by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

 

She said she was also considering mandatory cremation for all Ebola victims “to avoid tampering with the dead and contaminating water sources”.

 

The country’s information minister, Lewis Brown, said last week: “We are a traditional society and this disease attacks traditional practices like how we prepare bodies for burial. It’s difficult, but so is this disease which is drastic and deadly, requiring very, very stringent and difficult measures.”