Hong Kong Ebola virus volunteers speak of human catastrophe

The Ebola epidemic has killed more than half of all infected people, but fear and stigma are helping to make the virus even more deadly, say two Hongkongers who have just returned from Liberia - one of the hardest hit West African countries.

"It's more than an epidemic now, it's a human catastrophe," Red Cross clinical psychologist Eliza Cheung Yee-lai said yesterday.

Cheung, who returned from a month-long stay in Liberia last week, recounted how those infected with Ebola were abandoned and thrown into the streets - and families with any known connection to someone with the virus were shunned by their communities.

Cheung and Red Cross volunteer May Yeung Pui-shan - a public health doctor - made up the second team sent from Hong Kong to West Africa in support of international efforts to contain the deadly virus. The Red Cross previously sent three nurses.

Based in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, the pair trained more than 100 public health workers and counsellors. Many were from the epidemic-ravaged areas of Bong, Bomi, Lofa and Montserrado and have since returned to train others.

Ebola has killed 1,427 people in four West African countries among the 2,615 infected. In Liberia alone, 1,082 cases have been reported, and the death toll has hit 624.