I was surprised to see this report from The News in allAfrica.com: Liberia: 11 Children Infected With Ebola. An excerpt and then a comment:
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has launched an emergency in southern Guinea following information that 11 suspected cases of children infected with Ebola virus have been reported, three of whom have already died.
In an effort to prevent the severe, often-fatal disease from spreading further, UNICEF has reportedly rushed in to deliver much needed health supplies to the most affected areas, a report posted on the organization's website stated. The latest information is being exacerbated by the death of the fifth Ebola patient last Tuesday in Southeast Guinea, which has triggered concerns of possible spread of the virus' recent flare-up.
The recent flare-up prompted the Liberian Government to shut its borders with Guinea following reports that the latest Ebola outbreak could made its way across the borders. The newest death of the fifth Ebola patient was reported in the Macenta prefecture, which is approximately 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the community of Koropara, where the four earlier mortalities were detected. How the four people contracted the virus remains unclear, but it is worthy to note that Koropara refused the efforts of battling the onset of Ebola.
Last week, Fode Sylla Tass from the National Coordination of the Fight against Ebola in Guinea said the fifth man, whose identity is yet to be determined, had recently gone to Koropara, where he reportedly had direct contact with the four Ebola patients. The man was said to have been buried in Makoidou village, without cleaning or performing sanitary interventions on the body. In the past, dead bodies, including those infected with Ebola, were washed thoroughly prior to burial. However, washing infected bodies has become a significant medium of virus transmission.
Although the story has been picked up several times on the #Ebola hashtag, they all link to this one report. I find no corroboration from UNICEF's own website, nor anything in other Liberian or Guinean sources.
The headline mentions Liberia, but the cases seem to be in southern Guinea. Worse yet, after that first paragraph about 11 children with suspected Ebola it has nothing else to say about them. Instead it goes back to a rehash of the known cases in Guinea.
The three unquoted paragraphs in the report are standard news-release stuff about what UNICEF has done for Guinea (about the known cases).
So something smells bad about this report, and I've gone to the trouble of blogging it only to note that it looks highly unreliable.
