Terror as Ebola patient roams crowded capital market

An escaped Ebola patient has sparked panic by walking through a crowded market in the Liberian capital in search of food, even as terrified residents screamed at him to keep away.

Sighting the white medical tag on his wrist indicating he had tested positive for the disease, stallholders and shoppers in Monrovia fled or yelled at the man as he passed among them, at times carrying a large stick or what appeared to be a rock for protection. The man, dressed in shorts and a red shirt, was eventually confronted by health workers wearing protective clothing but he resisted their attempts to persuade him to get into an ambulance.

They surrounded the patient and sprayed him with disinfectant, then grappled him to the floor and manhandled him into a vehicle as he fought to escape.

He showed no apparent physical symptoms of the disease.

The episode on Tuesday reflects the difficulties authorities face in trying to contain the world’s deadliest outbreak of the virus.

The patient appeared to have fled the nearby Elwa hospital Ebola treatment unit, which is run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). The medical charity called yesterday for a global military intervention to curb the outbreak, saying the world’s response so far had been ‘‘lethally inadequate’’.

More than 1550 people have died since the epidemic started in Guinea earlier this year. At least 3000 have been infected with the virus but the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned more than 20,000 are likely to be infected.

MSF international president Joanne Liu told the United Nations in a speech that calls for help had been ignored.

‘‘Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it. The clock is ticking and Ebola is winning,’’ she said.

‘‘The time for meetings and planning is over. It is now time to act.

‘‘Every day of inaction means more deaths and the slow collapse of societies. Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat. States have essentially joined a global coalition of inaction.’’

MSF said military and civilian teams capable of dealing with a biological disaster were needed immediately, because the spread of the disease ‘‘will not be prevented without a massive deployment’’.

Food is becoming a pressing concern in the wider region, as farmers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – the three countries suffering the worst outbreaks – are due to begin harvesting rice and maize in the next few weeks but could be prevented from doing so by the restrictions on movement that their governments have imposed.

Food prices have already risen sharply, particularly in urban areas. Shukri Ahmed, a senior economist at the Food and Agriculture Organisation, said the problem was unprecedented, and mainly a logistical one, because labourers who usually helped farmers to harvest were not allowed to move around, and traders could not reach farms to buy the crops. He warned that if Ebola was not brought under control soon, the food shortage would be ‘‘very grave’’.

At least 31 people have died in what the WHO said was an unrelated outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Health workers push an Ebola patient into an ambulance. The man had escaped from quarantine at a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.