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Buchanan, Grand Bassa County - Grand Bassa County was gearing up to celebrate at least more than 21 days without any new case of the deadly Ebola Virus until specimen of four sick people from the LAC Plantation came back positive. This brings to a total six new confirmed Ebola cases resurfacing between November 1 and 10th in Grand Bassa County.
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When four people are said to have traveled to RiverCess County to attend a burial, they came back and started getting sick, thus the new cases. When it was confirmed that the four persons, including an 11-year-old girl were all positive with the virus, the management opted to quarantine the two camps where they resided before their illness.
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?From the background investigation presented by the active case finders and corroborated by the contact tracers, it became very apparent that Popo Beach has become the epicenter of a new Ebola outbreak,? states case findings obtained by FrontPageAfrica.
The team states that there are four clusters of Ebola cases with an associated high fatality and each of these four clusters had an independent index case. The case finders in the Popo Beach community were able to identify people who had direct contact with the man who was stabbed in the area in October.
Some had alleged that his wife?s lover stabbed him in a jealous rage, but everyone who had direct contact with the man?s body fluid are either dead or sick. Twenty-eight persons from this web of contacts have been lost. They have escaped to other communities, including Old Road, New Kru Town and Logan Town.
Eight persons who are believed to have had direct contact with the victim?s body fluids as it oozed out of his wounds died. The team wants to visit all of the homes with cases to identify all of the contacts or establish the locations of all of the contacts and cases that may not be known yet. It states that there must be meetings with heads of households on Ebola awareness in the Popo Beach area as there are reported cases of denial and hiding of some sick people and the continuous carrying out of secret burials.
?We visited the homes of where the cases occurred and interviewed contacts and survivals. We noted with dismay that an entire cluster of households had been deserted and the contacts fled to different communities,? states the team.
Jenewonde?s nightmare
On Saturday, FrontPageAfrica visited the remote Grand Cape Mount County town of Jenewonde, for them the Ebola epidemic is just beginning. The town has lost 10% of its population to the disease with a fatality rate of 90% and only one survivor.
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Rivercess Also Hit
In RiverCess County, information suggests that at least 10 persons have died from the virus while 20 more people in Gozohn Town (District #1) have been quarantined and with 81 under surveillance.
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Most villages in the area where the deaths occurred remain under surveillance or quarantine, but the issue of denial is rife. Health authorities say locals in these rural areas are still attending unsafe burials and performing rituals during the burial of loved ones. The deplorable road condition also seems to be a factor that is impeding efforts by health workers in the area to respond to the outbreak. These health workers in some cases travel on foot to remote communities and sometimes it takes seven to eight hours to get to one village.
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ETU Not Ready Yet
As these new Ebola cases are surfacing in the two counties, US Troops in the county remain optimistic about completing a 100-bed ETU by November 18, 2014.
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