A former government minister in Sierra Leone said he has lost nine members of his family to the Ebola epidemic raging in west Africa that relentlessly continues to take its toll on human lives.
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Ebola is caused by a virus via direct contact with body fluids or infected blood. Scientists have identified five types of Ebola or Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus.
Ebola is caused by a virus via direct contact with body fluids or infected blood. Scientists have identified five types of Ebola or Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus.
Ebola has claimed 273 lives in Sierra Leone. Overall almost 900 people have been killed by the pathogen, which is spread through contact with bodily fluids, since this worst-ever outbreak began at the start of the year.
"Nine members of my family including my brothers and sisters are now dead from the virus," said Nyallah, who was replaced in a cabinet reshuffle last year after several years in President Ernest Bai Koroma's government.
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Described as a "molecular shark" in medical literature, Ebola causes extreme fever before breaking down its victims' internal organs, which bleed out through the body in the most severe cases.
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Many indigenous people living in the forested border areas that straddle Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea believe the virus was introduced deliberately by outsiders, or is a fictional invention by the West, designed to subjugate them.
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"The confusion about Ebola which created the resistance from some people was due to the earlier messages which were both confusing and unreliable," Nyallah told the station.
"We were told that Ebola had no cure but were not told about the chances of survival if one reports early. We have now learnt more about the disease, especially about the body-to-body contact which increases transmission," he added.
Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency last week, quarantining Ebola-hit areas and cancelling foreign trips by ministers.
The country observed a "stay at home day" on Monday as the government recalibrated its response to the outbreak.
In Kenema, a diamond mining town at the epicentre of the outbreak, 320 kilometres (200 miles) east of the capital Freetown, shops closed, miners abandoned their pits and the roads were empty of traffic.
"There is no panic and the area is calm. The situation is getting a bit better and there is greater awareness than before," said Foday Sajuma, the director of a community radio station in the nearby town of Kailahun.
"People are reporting cases of victims and they are doing so voluntarily."
Source-AFP
