Stricken with Ebola, a family runs into the jungle

The Washington Post Ebola in Sierra Leone

KOINADUGU, Sierra Leone His daughter had just been coaxed into an ambulance bound for the Ebola center. As Foday Kalma watched, his neighbors and relatives crowded around the vehicle, wailing that she was being driven to her death.

Kalma, 43, couldnt bear it. He had already lost his wife and mother-in-law to the disease. Suddenly, to his astonishment, 9-year-old Fatmata jumped out of the ambulance. She dashed to where he was standing with her two siblings. Thats when Kalma made a split-second decision that would rattle the regions medical establishment: He gathered his kids and bolted for the jungle.

Another family of possible Ebola carriers was on the run.

Six months after the worlds largest Ebola outbreak began, experts say one of their biggest challenges is convincing people to trust the medical system. Families still hide suspected Ebola victims or refuse to take them to health facilities. The problem exists in Liberia, but some foreign health officials say its even more daunting in Sierra Leone, where the transmission rate continues to climb even as it declines in the neighboring country.

In rural areas like Koinadugu, a district bordering Guinea, the problem is especially severe. There is no electricity or running water, let alone a modern hospital. Medicine usually means local herbs, generic malaria pills or the advice of a local healer. People whisper that disinfectant spreads the disease rather than kills it.

The influx of foreign health workers in moonsuits has terrified residents. Recently, a villager arrived at the districts Ebola isolation center and demanded that his daughter be taken away from the white people.

Another man with Ebola symptoms climbed a tree to escape a team that wanted to bring him in for treatment.

Hes going to starve out there, said John F. Koroma, one of the contact tracers who had been trying for nearly a week to bring him in.

Every day, teams of officials plunged into the jungle, searching for people exposed to Ebola who had fled medical treatment. Officially, 1,583 people have died from the disease in Sierra Leone since May. But authorities suspect entire families have perished in the wilderness, before Ebola tests were even taken. Kalma and his children could be next, officials feared.

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Stricken with Ebola, a family runs into the jungle