Exposure Concerns Grow in Liberia After Diagnosis of First Ebola Case in Weeks

NEW YORK TIMES  by Sheri Fink                                                            March  25, 2015

Worries have widened in recent days over the number of people in Liberia who may have been exposed to the country’s first Ebola case in more than two weeks, a street vendor who lived in a one-bathroom house shared with 52 others in a Monrovia suburb and who had sold food at a school where more than 1,900 students are enrolled.

The patient, identified as Ruth Tugbah, 44, had been in contact with a range of people, including her children and a pastor who had sought to comfort her, after she developed a fever and was contagious, aid workers said Tuesday.

Ms. Tugbah received a diagnosis of Ebola on Friday, ending a short-lived period of optimism that Liberia would be the first of three afflicted West African countries to emerge from the worst epidemic of the deadly virus in history....

On Tuesday the patient’s 18-year-old daughter, Beneta Kun, developed a headache and weakness and was taken to an Ebola treatment unit for testing, aid workers in Liberia reported.

Read complete story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/world/africa/exposure-concerns-grow-in-liberia-after-diagnosis-of-first-ebola-case-in-weeks.html?ref=world

Ruth Tugbah, left, and her daughter, Beneta Kun. Ms. Tugbah received a diagnosis of Ebola on Friday; Ms. Kun has been hospitalized. Credit Maggie Muldoon/More Than Me