At the beginning of the week, the death toll in the West African Ebola Outbreak was 1,145 lives lost.  As of Saturday, it is 1,427 deaths out of 2,615 infections – almost 300 more deaths in a week from the killer, incurable virus raging through a region of poor countries that were not ready to handle such a health disaster.  And officials are once again warning the outbreak is likely underreported.

Worse Than It Appears

The UN World Health Organization on Friday listed several reasons why health officials don't have the complete picture of the breadth of the West African Ebola Outbreak.

Families often hide Ebola-infected people inside, believing loved ones will be more comfortable dying at home.  Sometimes, they deny that loved ones have Ebola because of the stigma.  Other times, they insist the patient doesn’t have the virus, and fear taking loved ones to isolation in Ebola clinics, where they believe patients are catching the virus.

Outside of the cities, Ebola patients are usually cared for by relatives, and are buried before officials can document the cases.  By the time Epidemiologists arrive in affected villages, they wind up counting the number of fresh graves as a crude indicator of suspected cases.

Two New Cases In Nigeria

The West Africa Ebola Outbreak has primarily affected Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.  But a Liberian-American businessman brought Ebola to Nigeria on a passenger plane.  Patrick Sawyer was so ill that he collapsed in the airport at Lagos.  He was not immediately quarantined, as earlier claimed by Nigerian officials.  Sawyer died, and two healthcare workers who treated him died. 

Now, Nigerian health officials say that the spouses of those two healthcare workers have also tested positive for the Ebola virus.  They were put into isolation two days ago, but were free to move around prior to that, with only daily checks to see if they developed any symptoms.  Officials are now trying to locate anyone with whom they had contact.  It brings Nigeria’s confirmed cases to 16 with five deaths, and 213 people now under surveillance.

Tragedy In Monrovian Slum

Earlier this week, CareerSpot News told you about a disturbance in Monrovia, Liberia’s West Point neighborhood, where people tried to break the Ebola quarantine.  Security forces opened fired and some people were hurt, including a teenage boy who was wounded in the legs, and writhed on the ground in pain before horrified residents and soldiers.

“This is messed up,” said national police Lieutenant Colonel Abraham Kromah at the time.  “They injured one of my police officers.  That’s not cool.  It’s a group of criminals that did this.  Look at this child.  God in heaven help us.”

We now know the identity of that teen.  He was 15-year old Shakie Karama, and he died of his wounds.  You see, even before Ebola, Liberia’s healthcare system was nonexistent.  No one at the scene knew how to get an ambulance for the kid, because there isn’t any.  He was eventually taken to hospital, where in the year 2014 he died of shock and loss of blood.