UPDATED: 17 Missing Ebola Patients Found

UPDATED 8/19/14, 12:20 P.M.:  According to Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown, the 17 Ebola patients who went missing, after an attack on a health facility over the weekend, have been located.

As Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah publicly anticipated, the patients, who were generally enrolled at the health center voluntarily, eventually turned themselves in.

Brown added, “They were traced and finally they turned themselves in” at a treatment centre.” The missing joined the other patients who had been relocated to John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center.

Untested Drug Helps Infected

Lewis also told the press that the health of three of the Liberian doctors who contracted Ebola has improved since they began taking untested drug ZMapp.

RELATED: Spanish Missionary Dies of Ebola, WHO Supports Giving Untested Drugs to Sick

And they are not alone. The two U.S. missionaries who were returned to the States, after becoming infected with the virus, are also reportedly recovering due to ZMapp.

In addition, another four Nigerians have not only made a full recovery from their treatment, but they have also been discharged from a Lagos hospital. Three more are still reportedly receiving care.

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In a strange turn of events, more than a dozen Ebola patients went missing from a quarantine Ebola center in Liberia, after disgruntled protestors and looters allegedly broke in to the facility and carried some patients away.

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After initially denying claims that patients were missing, Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown admitted that 17 Ebola victims had returned “back in to their communities.”

Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah gave some insight as to why the break-in occurred, saying that some protesters didn’t like that patients were being brought there from various parts of the capital.

According to the BBC, though, other reports indicate that some Liberians attacked the facility because they still believe Ebola to be a “hoax.”

The rest of the patients were reportedly relocated to John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia, but Nyenswah called the attack the country’s “greatest setback.”

Still, Nyenswah anticipates that the majority of the missing will return to the quarantine facilities since the majority of the patients came their voluntarily, “Most of the people that went into this holding facility came there voluntarily.

“So our impression is that they still want to be [there], but they were forcibly removed by vandals and looters, not because they wanted to leave, so we are sure that they will return.”

Meanwhile, in response, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that all travelers leaving the country must undergo exit screenings. They also want checks to be conducted at all airports, sea ports, and land crossings.

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