MONROVIA, Liberia — Steps from a chance at salvation, or at least a less excruciating death, Comfort Zeyemoh walked slowly from the Ebola treatment center Saturday. It was one of only three in a city devastated by the lethal virus. And it was nearly full.
Zeyemoh, 22, was not sick enough to gain entry, though she had started vomiting the night before and was feeling weak. Those are telltale signs of Ebola.
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“They sent us here for a checkup,” her boyfriend, Moses Sackie, said outside the facility run by the aid group Doctors Without Borders. “Now they are telling us to wait for three days.”
With each day, the small group of caregivers trying to cope with the worst outbreak of Ebola on record falls further and further behind as the pace of the virus’ transmission rapidly accelerates. Health facilities are full, and an increasing number of infected people are being turned away, left to fend for themselves.
The epidemic has killed more than 2,200 people in five African countries and now poses a threat to Liberia’s “national existence,” according to its defense minister. The World Health Organization says the epidemic’s growth has been “exponential” in recent weeks, especially in Liberia.
The Doctors Without Borders center in Paynesville, on the outskirts of Monrovia, has 160 beds and is scheduled to add 25 on Monday. It needs 1,200 – and a corresponding increase in staff – to cope with the epidemic, said Sophie-Jane Madden, a spokeswoman for the organization. As Ebola begins to race through this city, that number is certain to increase.
“We’re just running behind the virus, aren’t we?” Madden said. “And taking the sickest people because we don’t have the capacity” for more. On Friday, 23 people were admitted, 25 were turned away, nine died and seven were released after recovering, she said.
The sick arrive each day, hopeful that their timing and symptoms will get them past the gate. Even so, 7 in 10 will die inside, slightly better odds than the 9 in 10 who are dying in the community, Madden said.
On Saturday, Josh Tugbeh felt sick and weak, with pain in his joints that made it difficult to walk. “I come here and they say they are not accepting patients,” he said. “I want to go back home, but I am not able to walk to go home.”
At the JFK treatment center run by the government, Jatu Zombo cradled her 5-year-old son. A few feet away sat her 10-year-old boy. Both children felt cold and had been vomiting. Their father had died four days earlier, and Zombo, 36, spent days calling for an ambulance that never came. Finally, her brother paid someone $20 in U.S. currency to bring them to JFK. But the children could not get in.
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