Ebola Setback in Sierra Leone

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

Officials in Sierra Leone admitted Thursday that 500 people have been placed under quarantine after a man died from Ebola in a part of the nation where the disease was believed to have been eradicated for months.

Hassan Abdul Sesay, a member of the Sierra Leone parliament, told reporters that the victim had contracted the virus in the capital city of Freetown and then brought it to his home village where he want to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

A troubling aspect of the revelation of the outbreak was that the patient was not immediately diagnosed with Ebola and the national hotline for cases was not called until later in the disease’s progression.  The patient only presented a fever when they went to the hospital.

The victim’s entire home village and at least 30 medical professionals are part of the quarantine.

Authorities are also concerned because the victim’s father is a taxi driver who used his car to take his son to at least two hospitals.  The victim was also not buried using the special instructions to keep victims from spreading ebola after death.

The news of the quarantine was a black mark on an otherwise good week for news on the Ebola fight.  The World Health Organization (WHO) said this week that they have the lowest number of new Ebola cases in a year in West Africa.

Sierra Leone officials remain confident they will eradicate the disease despite the recent blow up.

“Sierra Leone is on the last lap to get to zero number of cases, and we are bringing in the Sierra Leone police and military to enforce the Ebola by-laws and get people to comply with the restrictions,” said retired Maj. Alfred Palo Conteh, head of the Ebola response centre.

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