With a highly lethal virus spreading in an unprecedented rate in countries across the region, so many West African people have come to fear the disease that has taken over 2,000 lives and threatens to take many more in the coming days. Health officials in the affected countries are concerned by the fact that most people are not even reporting Ebola cases for fear of isolation, stigma, and, most importantly, death that they believe inevitably follows the infection.
Dr. John Sankoh, medical director of the Redemption Hospital, one of the government-run facilities in Monrovia, Liberia, said that, there have already been several instances where patients have opted to avoid medical care from the facility out of fear, especially since news of medical staff that have died from exposure to the virus here have already been sensationalized.
Most recently, a young girl suspected of being infected with the virus was brought to this Ebola holding unit in a wheelbarrow, appearing to be on the verge of death. But upon becoming aware of what was happening, she got up and ran away. Villagers had to run after her and hold her down until an ambulance came and took her the hospital to receive treatment. Her feet were bloodied from the chase.
"Those patients come with frightful eyes. It is a disease that is beyond boundaries. It is a disease that is irrespective of who you are. It is a disease that comes to kill." Patient resistance is one of the major stumbling blocks that medical groups are facing across all the affected regions. People, they have found, are becoming increasingly resistant to treatment and quarantine, which makes it harder to bring the outbreak under control. In fact, earlier in September, there was a man who escaped quarantine and put up a fight before authorities were able to close in and bring him back into the facility.