Ebola Outbreak was Started by a Female Herbalist

Health officials in Sierra Leone have blamed the outbreak of the deadly Ebola Virus on a female herbalist who claimed to have power to heal people of the disease.

The health officials said the disease should not have spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone, but for the herbalist who lived in the eastern border village of Sokoma.

"She was claiming to have powers to heal Ebola. Cases from Guinea were crossing into Sierra Leone for treatment," Mohamed Vandi, the top medical official in the hard-hit district of Kenema, told Agence France-Presse.
"She got infected and died. During her funeral, women around the other towns got infected."

The herbalist's mourners fanned out across the rolling hills of the Kissi tribal chiefdoms, starting a chain reaction of infections, deaths, funerals and more infections.

The deadly Ebola Virus has claimed the lives of more than 1,300 people in West Africa as well as a Spanish Priest who died last week in Spain.