Liberia: ‘Ebola like disease’ hits Monrovia; health authorities Close schools.

Liberia: ‘Ebola like disease’ hits Monrovia; health authorities Close schools. HT: Crofs.

Via GNN Liberia: ‘Strange Disease’ Hits Monrovia, Health Authorities Say 1 Pronounced Dead. Excerpt:

The outbreak of what medical authorities considered as ‘Strange Disease’ in Greenville, southeastern Liberia, Sinoe County,  has reportedly taken the lives of eleven person and several being placed on critical list has reportedly crept in the populated City of Monrovia with one been pronounced dead by health authorities in Monrovia on Friday evening, and several quarantined in an undisclosed location. 

According to health authorities in Monrovia those infected with the “strange” disease showed symptoms of severe stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, fever and headaches, Liberia’s chief medical officer, Francis Kateh, said on national radio.  

Initial tests showed that the disease was not Ebola, said Dr. Francis Kateh, the Chief Medical Officer of Liberia during an interview with reporters in Monrovia recently. 

Liberia, as well as neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, were the three countries most affected by an outbreak of Ebola, which killed more than 11 000 people between December 2013 and mid-2016. 

Blood samples have been sent for analysis to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, said Kateh. 

Health authorities were made aware of the unknown disease on April 25, when several people died in south-eastern Sinoe County.  

Doctors suspect it is transmitted via body contact. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had sent rapid response teams to the area to assist Liberian health officials with technical and logistical support.

2.  April 27 APA News report: Liberia: Authorities in Sinoe County shut down schools.

The local authorities in southeastern Sinoe County have shut down all schools in the county until the disease that has surfaced in the county is contained. 

According to a local radio report in Sinoe County, the residents of Greenville city are fleeing the city and seeking refuge in nearby villages apparently to escape the scourge of the disease.

At the same time, the spokesman of the Liberia National Police, Sam Collins, has disclosed that the Liberia National Police has dispatched a team of forensic officers to Greenville to help the ministry of health investigate the cause of the deaths from the strange disease.  

The Ministry of Health spokesman, Sorbor George, told Okay FM in Monrovia on Thursday that even though the symptoms of the strange disease resemble symptoms of the Ebola Virus Disease such as vomiting and abdominal pain, the strange disease is not Ebola.  

He, however, urged citizens to continue observing measures like hand washing, reporting deaths in communities and ill relatives in communities to prevent any disease outbreaks. 

Liberia’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Francis Kateh, told reporters in Monrovia on Thursday that the death toll from the strange disease has risen to 10, while another person has contracted the disease, bringing to 18, the number of persons who have so far contracted in disease.