Ebola victim on the run in Sierra Leone capital

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Panic: A health worker with disinfectant spray walks down a street outside the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone.

Panic: A health worker with disinfectant spray walks down a street outside the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Photo: Reuters

Freetown: Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing positive for the deadly disease.

Radio stations in Freetown, a city of about 1 million, broadcast the appeal to locate the woman who tested positive for the disease that has killed more than 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak was first identified in February. Nigeria also reported its first case on Friday.

“She is a positive case and her being out there is a risk to all.” the announcement said. “We need the public to help us locate her.”

Saudatu Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington neighbourhood, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood samples were tested for the virus, Health ministry spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis said. The results came back on Thursday.