Ebola Test In Sierra Leone Sparks Riot

Two people in Sierra Leone have died in a riot sparked by health workers attempting to take a blood sample from an elderly woman suspected to be infected with Ebola. At least two people have died and 10 others wounded during clashes between security forces and a machete-wielding mob in the eastern town of Koidu on Tuesday, hospital doctors said on Wednesday. “Two bodies are now at the mortuary. I cannot say whether they have bullet wounds or what caused their deaths as the corpses have not ... been examined [yet],” said one of the doctors. The group of men successfully prevented the medical doctors from drawing blood from a 90-year-old woman, who was the mother of a youth leader, to test for the deadly Ebola virus. “Ebola contact tracers visited the house of a prominent youth leader to take a blood sample of his ailing 90-year-old mother but were barred by a gang of youths” who said the woman did not have the disease, an eyewitness said. Police are on the lookout for the son of the elderly woman, a youth leader named Adamu Eze, who commands wide support in the town and is thought to have gone into hiding. Health organizations say the deadliest Ebola epidemic on record has infected over 6,000 in Sierra Leone and neighboring Liberia and Guinea, killing nearly half of them. In Sierra Leone alone, the epidemic has claimed nearly 1,200 lives as of October 14, according to latest World Health Organization figures.Globally, more than 4,500 people have died from the disease.