A crowd gathers near a checkpoint, which controls the movement of people in and out of Ebola-hit regions, at the entrance to Bomi county in northwestern Liberia .REUTERS
Liberia has quarantined remote villages at the epicentre of the disease in a bid to control the spread of Ebola, but without essential food and medical supplies reaching these places the safety measure could boomerang.
It is a choice between staying and facing death, or running away in search of food and spread the disease, reports Reuters.
Experts have been warning about such a scenario.
"If sufficient medication, food and water are not in place, the community will force their way out to fetch food and this could lead to further spread of the virus," said Tarnue Karbbar, a worker for charity Plan International based in Lofa County in Liberia.
Ebola has killed at least 1,145 people in four African nations, but Lofa county alone recorded 124 new cases of Ebola and 60 deaths in just a week. Around 13 health care workers have died from Ebola in the county.
Fear and distrust are adding to the overwhelmed health care response.
In Boya, in northern Lofa County, Joseph Gbembo, an Ebola survivor is left struggling to raise 10 children under five years old and support five widows after nine members of his family were killed by the virus. Blaming him for the deaths, his neighbours refuse to talk to him.
"I am lonely," he said. "Nobody will talk to me and people run away from me."
He says he has received no food or health care for the children, nor any help from government officials.
Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has imposed emergency measures including the community quarantine and a system of medical roadblocks to prevent the infection reaching cities. But without attendant measures to provide food and health care to the quarantined regions, the situation could get out of control.
In a nation that has only around 50 doctors for a population of over four million, clinics are full and ill-equipped. People still are in denial about the deadly infection considering hospitals to be "death traps".
Unlike east Africa which has tackled earlier outbreaks through health care, surveillance and widespread awareness, Liberia has poor internet and telecommunications.
Nigerian on way to India dies
Meanwhile, a 35-year-old Nigerian woman who was travelling from Nigeria to India for cancer treatment died on Sunday in the United Arab Emirates after showing symptoms similar to those of the Ebola virus, according to UAE's state news agency WAM.
"Full safety and precautionary measures have been taken by the medical staff who attended the patient according to the World Health Organization (WHO) standards for dealing with suspected cases of infectious diseases," the Abu Dhabi health authority said, reports Xinhua news.
All contacts of the patient, including her husband, are in isolation pending the result of Ebola tests on the patient.
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