As Ebola patients vanish in Liberia’s health system, survivors go on a desperate search

WASHINGTON POST                           OCT. 21, 2014
BY  Kevin Sieff

MONROVIA ...many people who have simply vanished as Ebola tears through the city.

Ebola ravaged this capital so quickly that some patients passed through an already broken medical system with hardly any paper trail. Others were admitted to one clinic and transferred to another without notice. Hundreds were cremated long before their families were notified that they had died.

The world has heard about the deaths. Ebola has claimed 2,500 lives in this country, most of them in Monrovia. But the epidemic has also left in its trail another form of grief and anguish for those whose friends and relatives are missing. About 30 percent of Ebola victims survive. That’s the number many here obsess over — it is just high enough to offer hope and to fuel uncertainty.

Outside an Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, a doctor updates a list of deceased and current patients as family members wait nearby. (Tanya Bindra/For The Washington Post)

Their vigil is a reflection of a medical system so overwhelmed by the virus that it has lost track of both the living and the dead. The United States and other foreign donors are working with the Liberian government to improve its system of medical records. Some clinics and hospitals have started posting more accurate lists of the deceased on their front walls, where families now gather, collapsing into tears as soon as the names appear.

But many are left without even a hint of their loved ones’ whereabouts.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/as-ebola-patients-vanish-in-liberias-health-system-survivors-go-on-a-desperate-search/2014/10/20/274acf48-08dd-4a76-9f58-8c35dfb22312_story.html