Protest against Ebola quarantine in Liberia

Liberia: Quarantine compliance with Ebola enforced with weapons

08/21/2014

To enforce compliance with the Ebola quarantine in Liberia, the army now resorted to live ammunition and tear gas. According to eyewitnesses, four people were said to have been injured. „They did not shoot at peaceful citizens“, cited the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) a military spokesman. Previously, there had been clashes in West Point. The district was quarantined due to the Ebola epidemic and, according to residents, sealed off without prior notice. At the weekend, an angry crowd had entered a makeshift quarantine station and taken out 17 Ebola patients.

Quarantine zones are designed to prevent further spread of Ebola
Liberia is currently most affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. To curb the epidemic and prevent further spread of the dangerous virus, the authorities have set up quarantine zones, including in the border area between Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. According to the WHO, the Ebola outbreak has already claimed 1,350 lives. The probability of dying from an Ebola virus infection is 50 to 90 percent.

In order to handle the dramatic situation, the WHO released experimental drugs for the treatment of Ebola in early August. 30,000 people have had to be treated with these drugs since then, writes epidemiologist Oliver Brady of the University of Oxford in a commentary in the journal „Nature“. However, the pharmaceutical stocks would be far from sufficient. Brady therefore calls on politics and business to urgently accelerate the development of new drugs and vaccines.

To control Ebola outbreaks in West Africa, many more medicines are needed
After two helpers suffering from Ebola in the USA were successfully treated with the drug ZMapp, the drug was also used in Liberia. The stocks are, according to Brady but almost exhausted. Also for other drugs and drugs in the trial, the maximum was enough for the treatment of a few dozen to hundreds of patients, but not for tens of thousands.

„The need is probably much higher than many people realize. For example, our analysis suggests that even conservative estimates suggest that up to 30,000 people would have needed treatment or prophylaxis during the current outbreak - significantly more than any previous outbreak“, writes the epidemiologist in the journal. „This difference reflects the extent of the current emergency situation, which has meanwhile made the leap from the countryside to the city. WHO warned last week that the number of illnesses and deaths 'greatly underestimated the size of the problem'.“ (Ag)