Ebola victim in Sierra Leone on the run

Freetown -  Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to
trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose
family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing
positive for the deadly disease.
Radio stations in Freetown, a city of around 1 million inhabitants,
broadcast the appeal on Friday to locate a woman who tested
positive for the disease that has killed 660 people across Guinea,
Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak was first identified in
February.
"Saudatu Koroma of 25 Old Railway Line, Brima Lane,
Wellington," the announcement said. "She is a positive case and
her being out there is a risk to all. We need the public to help us
locate her."
Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington
neighbourhood, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood
samples were tested for the virus, Health ministry spokesperson
Sidi Yahya Tunis. The results came back on Thursday.
"The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully
removed her and took her away," Tunis said. "We are searching
for her."
Fighting one of the world's deadliest diseases is straining the
region's weak health systems, while a lack of information and
suspicion of medical staff has led many to shun treatment.
Earlier this year, a man in Freetown tested positive for Ebola
although he is believed to have caught it elsewhere.
According to health ministry data and officials, dozens of people
confirmed by laboratory tests to have Ebola are now unaccounted
for in Sierra Leone, where the majority of cases have been
recorded in the country's east.
While international medical organisations have deployed experts to
the field in an attempt to contain the outbreak, the World Health
Organisation (WHO) said poor health infrastructure and a lack of
manpower were hindering their efforts.
"We're seeing many of these facilities simply don't have enough
people to provide the constant level of care needed," WHO
spokesperson Paul Garwood told a news briefing in Geneva on
Friday.
There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, which causes diarrhoea,
vomiting and internal and external bleeding. It can kill up to 90%
of those infected, although the mortality rate of the current
outbreak is around 60%.
The West African outbreak is the first time that Ebola, which was
first discovered in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo in
1976, has appeared in heavily populated urban areas and
international travel hubs.
Cases have already been confirmed in Conakry and Monrovia, the
capital cities of Guinea and Liberia.
On Thursday authorities in Nigeria announced that they were
testing a Liberian man for Ebola after he collapsed upon arrival at
an airport in Lagos, the country's commercial capital and a mega-
city of 21 million people.