The Canadian Press (via
Yahoo News) reports:
It was a highway robbery but the bandits got more than they bargained for when they stopped a taxi van in Guinea and made off with blood samples that are believed to be infected with the deadly Ebola virus.
Authorities publicly appealed on national radio Friday to the unidentified robbers to hand over the samples that were stolen from the minibus taxi during its 265-kilometre (165-mile) trek from central Kankan prefecture to a test site in southern Gueckedou.
The samples were drawn from a single person and were stored in a sealed container, and handed off to the taxi driver when armed bandits stopped the vehicle the aid group had commissioned near the town of Kissidougou, said Faya Etienne Tolno, a press officer for the Guinea Red Cross.
... Dr. Barry Moumie, who heads patient care for the national Ebola response co-ordination committee, told The Associated Press: "We have informed the security services. If these thieves handle this blood, it will be dangerous."
This might be the most valuable theft they have ever pulled off.
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