Ebola Center Looted In Liberian Capital

A crowd attacked a makeshift Ebola quarantine center in a rundown neighborhood of the Liberian capital, throwing stones and looting equipment and food, witnesses said, and a health worker said patients had been removed from the building, according to The Associated Press.

"They came in and took whatever they could take and took their patients because they don't want anyone here," a health worker, who declined to be named, said as a crowd gathered around the fence of the center in the West Point neighborhood late on Saturday, the AP reported.

It was not immediately possible to confirm whether patients had been removed from the center, which was housed in a school building, according to the AP.

Rocks lay in the street outside and rice was strewn on the ground in evidence of looting, the AP reported. Fearful health workers stood nearby waiting for an escort to leave the center.

"My life is the most important thing now. I need them get out of here," the health worker said of the crowd, which later dispersed, according to the AP.

The incident highlighted the difficulty of containing the virus, which has killed more than 1,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since the outbreak began in March, the AP reported. Four people have also died in Nigeria.

Inside the schoolhouse, Daniel Dahn and his children sat alone in the darkness, according to the AP. There was no sign of other patients in the building.

Dahn said his wife had died that day of diarrhea and vomiting, the AP reported. He did not know the cause of her death but had been isolated because of the possibility that he and the children might have become contaminated with Ebola.

A corpse lay in a nearby room, though it was unclear whether the person had died of the virus, according to the AP.

Residents in West Point said they mistrusted the government and feared it might import the virus into the community through the health center, the AP reported.

Underlying their concerns was a lack of information about the virus and fears about the impact it could have on the impoverished neighborhood, according to the AP.

Such social tensions have compounded the challenge faced by West African governments and international agencies in tackling the epidemic, the AP reported.

The death toll from Ebola is still climbing and the U.N. health agency faces questions over whether it should have declared the outbreak a "public health emergency of international concern" before August 8, according to the AP.

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