Two families quarantined as Ebola scare deepens

Two new cases of Ebola were recorded in Liberia on Wednesday, nearly two months since the West African country worst hit by the disease was declared Ebola-free.

As Liberia fights to quickly contain the new Ebola outbreak, the family of one victim in the village of Nedowein were confined to their home.

“We’ve been here since Sunday and the quarantine started Monday morning. Sunday we did the burial, and Monday in the morning is when they said we have to stay here for 21 days,” said Adolphus, the uncle of a 17-year-old man who died of Ebola on Tuesday in Margibi County, a rural area about 30 miles from the capital Monrovia.

Health officials went through the neighbourhood to spread awareness and get the community involved in containing the outbreak.

Involving the community is how Liberia won the fight with the deadly disease the first time around.

“I think our people know we just have to come back to what we were doing before. We were doing hand washing, we were very careful, no hand shaking. Now we have to be more careful than ever before,” said William Cooper, a district representative.

Health officials in Nedowein were working hard to identify who made contact with the latest victim; a boy who had attended school and visited a local clinic in the week before his death.

“I feel very bad about this. Some of us, our school business will stop. I hustle, that also will stop. And I learned that they will quarantine our area. This made me feel bad,” said Siled Johnson.

A local doctor said officials had not ruled out the possibility of transmission from an animal. In past outbreaks, humans have been infected by eating monkey flesh.

There are currently no indications that the case was imported from a neighbouring country and Margibi County is far from the epidemic’s remaining hotspots.

4,800 lives have been claimed by the Ebola virus in Liberia.

More than 11,200 people have died in the past year in what has been the worst outbreak of Ebola ever recorded. Nearly all of the victims have come from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.