[LarryW]

There are also reports that as many as 37 Ebola patients escaped or were forcibly removed from the clinic in Monrovia when the stained and contaminated bed linens were looted. Stand by to stand by.

Liberia creates ‘plague villages’ with Ebola quarantines

http://nypost.com/2014/08/18/liberia...a-quarantines/

To try to control the Ebola epidemic spreading through West Africa, Liberia has quarantined remote villages at the epicenter of the virus, evoking the “plague villages” of medieval Europe that were shut off

With few food and medical supplies getting in, many abandoned villagers face a stark choice: Stay where they are and risk death or skip quarantine, spreading the infection further in a country ill-equipped to cope.

In Boya, in northern Liberia’s Lofa county, Joseph Gbembo, who caught Ebola and survived, says he is struggling to raise 10 children under 5 years old and support five widows after nine members of his family were killed by the virus.

Fearful of catching Ebola themselves, the 30-year-old’s neighbors refuse to speak with him and blame him for bringing the virus to the village.

“I am lonely,” he said. “Nobody will talk to me and people run away from me.” He says he has received no food or health care for the children and no help from government officials.

Aid workers say that if support does not arrive soon, locals in villages like Boya, where the undergrowth is already spreading among the houses, will simply disappear down jungle footpaths.

“If sufficient medication, food and water are not in place, the community will force their way out to fetch food and this could lead to further spread of the virus,” said Tarnue Karbbar, a worker for charity Plan International based in Lofa county.

Ebola has killed at least 1,145 people in four African nations, but in the week through Aug. 13, Lofa county recorded more new cases than anywhere else — 124 new cases of Ebola and 60 deaths.

The World Health Organization and Liberian officials have warned that, with little access by health care workers to the remote areas hidden deep in rugged jungle zones, the actual toll may be far higher.

(Cont.)