New Cases Of Ebola:86 People Quarantined In Liberia

         

86 quarantined in new Ebola patient’s house; over 100 contacts; 2,000 students at risk.(so sad)
Laurence Doe Innis, brother of Liberia’s latest confirmed Ebola patient, sits with hands on his cheeks, worried about what is going to happen to him in the next ten days or so. Doe says he is worried because he helped get his sister (who tested positive for Ebola) to the Redemption Hospital where it was noticed that she had symptoms of the deadly Ebola Virus. He said his sister, Ruth Tugbheh, 44, got sick on Sunday, March 15 and her condition became worse on Thursday of the same week.


He said at the Redemption Hospital the health workers quickly recognized the symptoms after thoroughly examining her, they decided she should stay at the hospital, but did not tell him why. He said on Friday he received calls from several organizations about his sister’s condition. “I was very speechless because I’ve never had such an experience or met such people in my life. They asked me questions about my sister because I took her to the hospital,” he said.
Innis said his life now is hinged on observation because he does not know when his Ebola symptoms will begin to show, because of the close contact he had with his sister. He said the health team has cautioned him to take the necessary prevention method and promised to monitor his health over the 21-day period. In the Kumasu community in the Caldwell area where the newly infected Ebola patient lives, her entire household of over eighty six persons have been quarantined with over one hundred contacts traced by national and community contact tracers.

Benetta Koon, 18, is the daughter of the Ebola patient and attends the More Than Me School Academy on Ashmun Street. She said she is worried that she may never see her mother again because of the dangerous nature of the Ebola Virus. Koon said she and her cousin Baindu Fahnbulleh helped care for her mother in the early stages of the disease. She helped wash her mother’s hair and scrub her back when she was too weak to bathe herself and did so with no protection. But she said the most important thing to her now is having her mother back.
“My mother was sick and they took her to the hospital. I’m feeling bad because if my mother dies I would be left without a mother,” said Koon, who is studying leadership at More Than Me. Continued Koon: “There won’t be anyone for me to call Ma. I saw my Ma from Friday to Tuesday because normally come for vacation and then Tuesday evening I go home. She didn’t know she had Ebola, because she has never experienced it before. She only said her throat, head and body was hurting.”

Gains lost
As soon as it was dawn, health workers and emergency responders began to troop into the community on Saturday, immediately placing it under quarantine to control the movement of active contacts in the area. But it proved difficult at first to control the movement, as some of the inhabitants of the house refused to stay at home. Some went gallivanting though they knew that there was an Ebola case in their house. One woman said she would send her children to school on Monday and would only keep them home if the school was to put them out.

Reversing gains
Abraham B. Fahnbulleh, an active case finder with the UNDP and the Ministry of Health said this case could be a turning point in terms of the gains made because of the number of contacts that are being traced. He said the Ebola patient used to sell cooked meal to two schools in the community and even when she was sick, she continued selling, putting both teachers and students at risk. He said there are also two teachers staying in the same house as the patient and teaching at different schools.
“Our fear now is that this particular structure has two teachers one called Snah and the other Jacob Morris are teachers at the Upper Caldwell High School,” said Fahnbulleh. “The lady in question always takes spaghetti from the home carrying it to the SIM Community campus. There are other contacts; the house is overpopulated and they have a school very close to the house.” Fahnbulleh said he feels the gains made in the Ebola fight has been lost because of this new case that has surfaced in a large community like Caldwell.
“As a contact tracer it is worrying because we are looking at us going back even with the kind of job we are doing currently,” he said. “We thought we were reaching the finish line, now we are starting fresh. The whole issue of Ebola started with only one person. Thousands of people have died just from one person. We are worried.”

Sex with a male survivor
Pastor Pius Ford Williams is Psychosocial Counselor, of a Community based initiative at the Ministry of health in Monrovia and is based in the Caldwell area. Pastor Williams’ theory, which has resonated with about everyone spoken to in the community is that Ebola patient Tugbeh may have become infected through sexual intercourse with someone who is an Ebola Survivor.
“Ruth Tugbeh has a Boyfriend and that boyfriend is a survivor and his name is Jarkloh. He lives in New Kru Town on Karpeh Street,” said Pastor Williams. “They said she left here and went to Jarkloh and slept there about two weeks ago, but when she came back all of a sudden last week she fell ill.”


The pastor said the man who allegedly infected patient Tugbeh lives in the New Kru Tow area. He said contract tracers were able to trace the house where the man, only known as Jarkloh lives, but they were told by neighbors that he had gone to work at the Freeport of Monrovia. He said the occupants of the house where Tugbeh lives are worried because of the new outbreak.
“The family is terribly worried. There are about eighty six occupants. One building contains 43, another contains 12 and another 31 and it is owned by one Mr. Sheku Konneh,” he said. “Everyone on the compound is worried because one way or the other they may have come in contact with her because they all use the same bathroom. This is very worrying.”

Two schools at epicenter
He said the mother of three has been in contact at two schools, one situated near her house and another just a stone throw from her house with a huge population. “There is a school close to the house and it has 70 students and they all share the same bathroom. There is a school where she used to sell at,” he said.
“She used to sell beans and Spaghetti and she used to serve the entire school, both students and teachers and that school contains 1,901 students. This is a very serious concern. She must have had contact with the students and the teachers.”
Despite the community’s assertion that the new patient had sex with a male Ebola survivor, her children have not been able to come to terms with it, because they do not know this man. When asked if she could confirm the widespread speculation started by government officials, Koon daughter of the sick woman had this to say: “I have not heard from her and no one from the family has been there to see her. I don’t know how she got Ebola; she was only sick. That is all I can tell you”
A nice woman
Angie Dennis, 24, lives in the same house as the patient. She is sad that their house has been quarantined but has nothing but nice words and best wishes for the sick woman. “It is not an easy struggle to be in right now, I feel very bad I can’t even explain with words, but I’m just praying to God that we get out of this situation very soon and that no one will come down with the virus,” she said.
Continued Dennis: “Ma Ruth (people in the community call her my play mother); I was very close to her in this community. She is a nice person; a very friendly woman and someone who doesn’t keep things in heart for people and she is very down to earth. This thing is really a shock to us in this community.”

Government shocked
Isaac Jackson, Deputy Information Minister said the news of this new case came at a time when Liberia was making headways in its fight against the deadly virus. Speaking to FrontPageAfrica at his office in Monrovia, Minister Jackson acknowledged the Caldwell case and said it is a huge reversal in the gains made in the response.
“This is quite shocking and disturbing news, considering that we have counted 28 days and we were quite approaching the 42 days,” he said. “We were all shocked on yesterday to have heard that a lady in the Caldwell area has contracted the virus and she was hurriedly taken to the ELWA3 facility and upon examination, our observation is that she has contracted the virus.”
 “This is one of the challenges we are now confronting in the second phase of the effort to contain the virus,” he said. “We were at zero, we started the counting; now, survivors who are advised to abstain from sex for three months; some of them are not having much patience and they are infecting people.”
Before this case Liberia had no positive case and was counting towards freedom, but as complacency set in and on the 28th day of counting, a new case surfaced in the heart of a populated community.
culled