Liberia 'losing grip on Ebola' as hunt for missing patients goes on

Liberia was desperately searching for 17 Ebola patients who fled an attack on a quarantine centre in the capital Monrovia, as the outbreak appeared to overwhelm authorities in west Africa's worst-hit nation.

Club-wielding youths raided a medical facility set up in a high school in the dense-populated Monrovia slum on Saturday, some shouting "there's no Ebola", echoing wild rumours that the epidemic had been made up by the West.

Officials are considering sealing off the area - home to 75,000 people - to stop the nightmare scenario of people with the highly contagious disease wandering the city where unburied corpses have lain abandoned in the streets.

Information Minister Lewis Brown said: "All those hooligans who looted the centre are now probable carriers of the disease.... They took mattresses and bedding that were soaked with fluids from the patients. To quarantine the area could be one of the solutions.











[link to www.timeslive.co.za]