Ebola-hit Liberia discharges four virus survivors

By Evelyn T. Kpadeh 

MONROVIA, Liberia

Today was a happy day for 24-year-old Cassius Kollie and three others who were discharged from Monrovia’s ELWA-3 Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) after surviving the virus following the country’s latest outbreak.

At a ceremony held to mark the occasion, Kollie was discharged -- along with Othello Miah, 19; Mawen Aqwoi, 10; and Moses Duo, 9 -- by the Health Ministry and officials from Liberia’s Ebola Incident Management System.

For Kollie, surviving the virus was a miracle.

“I thank God that today I am out of the ETU, where I was lonely and anxious; I’m so happy to have survived,” he told Anadolu Agency in Monrovia.

While health officials have dismissed reports that the latest outbreak was caused by animals, Kollie admitted to having eaten a dead dog -- which had fallen ill earlier -- only days before getting sick himself.

“I’m sure the reason I got infected was because I did not prepare it [the dead dog] well. I roasted it with my friends and we ate it,” Kollie recalled.

Kollie -- along with his five friends who ate the dog meat -- all fell sick shortly afterward and were taken to the ETU, where they all tested positive for Ebola.

After receiving treatment, however, four of them were released from the ETU on Tuesday after testing negative for the virus. They have now rejoined their families in the Newdowien Community outside Monrovia.

“The ETU is not a death sentence; it’s here to save lives,” Tolbert Nyenswah, head of the Ebola Incident Management System, said upon their release from the treatment unit.

Two of the six people initially admitted to the ETU, meanwhile, are still receiving treatment and remain under observation.

Ebola has killed more than 5,000 people in poverty-stricken Liberia since March of 2014, when the first case was confirmed.

On May 9 of this year, the World Health Organization had declared Liberia “Ebola-free” following the expiry of a 42-day incubation period during which no new cases were reported.

The disease reappeared on June 29, however, in a community outside the capital.

Once all new cases are adequately treated -- and barring the appearance of any fresh cases -- Liberia will have to recount the 42-day incubation period before it can again be officially declared free of the virus.