Thousands protest in Sierra Leone over Ebola

Health workers preparing to tend to Ebola patients

There was pandemonium in Sierra Leone`s third largest city, Kenema, as thousands of residents Friday clashed with police during anti government demonstrations over the authorities` handling of the Ebola epidemic.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds who surrounded the main government hospital and a police station chanting anti government slogans.

According to sources, a 9-year old boy was gunned down during the skirmishes, allegedly by police. But the police has denied this.

The incident in Kenema happened as police in Freetown mounted a manhunt for a woman who tested positive for the Ebola virus.

32 year old Saudatu Koroma, a hair dresser, is the first ever Freetown resident to have tested positive for the virus, the ministry of Health and Sanitation said.

Previous cases and deaths in the densely populated capital city attributed to the Ebola have been traced to the epicenter of the outbreak in the east of the country.

Weapon-wielding family members of the infected woman stormed the King Herman Road hospital in the west of the capital on Thursday and forcibly removed her after realizing she was being tested for the deadly hemorrhagic fever disease, officials said.

The hospital has been closed down and all of its patients sent home.

“She is a positive case and her being out there is a risk to all. We need the public to help us locate her,” an announcement being aired by radio stations says.

Friday`s demonstration in Kenema was reportedly sparked by a rumor around alleged revelations by a nurse that the Ebola outbreak was masterminded by the government to kill the people.

This has from the unset of the outbreak been at the center of the denial which has been blamed for worsening the epidemic.

Kenema is one of the two hard-hit towns, alongside Kailahun, all of them in the east of the country, where most of Sierra Leone`s cases and deaths from the disease have concentrated. It is also home to the only Ebola testing facility in the country, which is the subject of a nurses` sit-down strike. The health workers want the Ebola ward there relocated away from the center of town.

Just few hours before Friday`s demonstration in Kenema, a civil society coalition called off a planned protest match there after police threatened to forcefully crack down on them.

The activists wanted to stage a “peaceful protest” during which they intended issuing a protest letter to the government over its “unsatisfactory” handling of the outbreak.

The regional police chief, Assistant Inspector General Karrow Kamara, was quoted saying they`d received intelligence that the demonstrators had planned to burn down the hospital where the Ebola cases are being managed.

As at this point, all but four of Sierra Leone`s 12 districts have not recorded any case of the Ebola virus which is also preoccupying authorities in neighboring Liberia and Guinea where it was first confirmed back in February.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation`s Friday update shows the death toll had risen to 152 and 450 confirmed cases.

President Ernest Bai Koroma also Friday chaired a lengthy emergency meeting at State House with international development partners at the end of which he announced his “new strategy” aimed at ending the outbreak under 90 days.

A special Presidential Taskforce, headed by the President himself, will now directly oversee implementation of the anti Ebola effort. It is in line with recommendations by the Accra summit on Ebola convened at the beginning of this month.

Over 630 people have died across the three countries, according to WHO figures.

Sierra Leone now accounts for the largest number of cases and also has the fastest growth of number of deaths.

Also on Friday evening, the Nigerian government declared ‘red alert’ at all entrance points into its territory following confirmation that a 40-year old Liberian man who collapsed moments after arriving at an airport in Lagos had the virus.