Guinea highway thieves steal suspected Ebola blood samples from van

A group of highway robbers in Guinea  stopped a taxi and made off with blood samples it was carrying that were believed to be infected with the deadly Ebola virus, prompting authorities to issue a public appeal to the robbers in an effort to get the samples back, officials said Friday — adding that the thieves' motives were unclear. The often-deadly illness is transmitted through blood and other bodily fluids.

The samples, drawn from a single person and stored in a sealed container, were being transported from central Kankan prefecture to a test site 165 miles away in southern Gueckedou by a minibus taxi when armed bandits stopped the vehicle the near the town of Kissidougou, said Faya Etienne Tolno, a press officer for the Guinea Red Cross.

"We don't understand why they stole the blood sample. Perhaps they thought there was cash hidden in the flask," Tolno said.

The Guinea Red Cross had hired the taxi because it did not have its own vehicle available for the trip, Tolno said. No one was injured in the incident, which took place on a road known for banditry.

"We have informed the security services. If these thieves handle this blood, it will be dangerous,” said Barry Moumie, who heads patient care for the national Ebola response coordination committee. "I can assure you, however, that the sample transportation procedures will now be strengthened to avoid such disappointments.”

The theft underscores how hazards abound in the Ebola response despite millions of dollars' worth of international support pouring into West Africa to fight the virus, which is spread primarily by contact with infected bodily fluids and in the latest outbreak is now responsible for more than 5,000 deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Hans Rosling, who is advising Liberia on its Ebola response, noted the difficulties of transporting such samples.

"Some of the planes — the U.S. military and U.N. planes — they will not fly Ebola specimens," he said. "But they have their regulations, and to cut red tape is not easy."

In Liberia, "we use specifically allocated motorbikes and cars. We use what's available and what's reasonable, we have to organize things as we go along," he said. "It may have been the correct decision in Guinea (to use a taxi) and the robbery was just a sad mishap."

Also on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the Democratic Republic of Congo's separate Ebola outbreak was officially over, after 42 days passed with no new cases.

The Congo outbreak, unrelated to the one in West Africa, was concentrated in northwest Equateur province and killed at least 49 people, according to local officials.

Separately, a Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone arrived in Switzerland on Friday for treatment and was able to walk off the transport plane, a Geneva medical official said.

Felix Baez Sarria arrived on a flight overnight and was transported in a specially outfitted ambulance with a police escort to Geneva University Hospital.

Geneva canton (state) Chief Medical Officer Jacques-Andre Romand told The Associated Press that the 43-year-old Baez wore a protective suit and mask as he got off the plane and climbed onto a gurney before boarding the ambulance.

Romand said doctors would decide on his treatment regime, which could include experimental drugs.

"As soon as we know what is going on, if there is medication that will help him we will give it to him," Romand said.

Baez, a member of the 165-person medical team Cuba sent to Sierra Leone, is believed to have caught the disease when he rushed to help a patient who was falling over. His treatment in Switzerland was organized through the WHO.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the Ebola epidemic has risen to 5,459 out of 15,351 cases identified in eight countries as of Nov. 18, WHO said on Friday. The vast majority of the deaths and cases occurred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where “transmission remains intense,” according to WHO.

Wire services