MOSCOW, August 20 (RIA Novosti) – Police have fired tear gas in response to a stone-throwing crowd that wants to leave a quarantined neighborhood in Monrovia, Liberia after being struck by Ebola, ITV reported Wednesday.
Witnesses to the angry mob claim there were no resulting injuries, ITV confirmed.
Liberia’s president ordered security forces to enforce a quarantine in the Liberian slum, home to some 50,000 people. The president also implemented a nighttime curfew from 21:00 pm to 6:00 am GMT on Tuesday.
"We have been unable to control the spread due to continued denials, cultural burying practices, disregard for the advice of health workers and disrespect for the warnings by the government," Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said, as quoted by The Wall Street Journal.
"As a result and due to the large population concentration, the disease has spread widely in Monrovia and environs," Sirleaf added.
Liberian authorities are struggling to treat and isolate the sick, due to fear of treatment centers causing the infected to hide in their homes, with families sometimes taking their relatives out of health centers, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Widespread fear that Ebola was being brought to Liberia from other African countries triggered an attack on an observation center in the neighborhood of West Point in Monrovia on Saturday, the Information Ministry said Tuesday. The mob looted the center, taking infectious bloody sheets and mattresses, while 37 infected patients fled the center.
All the patients who fled are now being screened and treated at a hospital in Monrovia, the ministry said. It is unclear how many of the 37 who fled were confirmed to have Ebola.
Ebola infections have now risen to 2,240 this year, resulting in 1,229 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The outbreak is currently affecting the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The fastest rising number of cases has been reported in Liberia, with at least 466 dead, The Wall Street Journal reported.
