Sierra Leone is appealing for help in tracking down a female Ebola patient who was forcibly taken out of hospital by her family as soon as she was confirmed positive for the deadly virus on Thursday.

Radio stations across the city of Freetown have been running the appeal since Friday when Saudatu Koroma was found to be missing and on the run.

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Korona, 32, had tested positive for the Ebola virus that has so far killed 660 people across the African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

She was the first resident of Freetown, a city of one million people, whose blood samples were confirmed to have the deadly virus after she was tested at an isolation ward of a Freetown hospital.

Her being out there, among the densely populated Wellington neighborhood or outside of it, poses a great health risk that can not be ignored, Sierra Leone's health ministry officials stressed.

Korona was admitted to hospital for tests but upon knowing that she was positive for Ebola, her family stormed the hospital and demanded that she be discharged, the health ministry added.

Since an Ebola outbreak was identified in February, some 219 people have died and 454 others infected in Sierra Leone alone.

In Guinea, where the deadly virus began, 314 deaths were reported and 415 more cases confirmed.

It later spread to Liberia, where it killed 127 people and sickened 224 more.

On Sunday, a Liberian man was confirmed to have died of Ebola after he collapsed on arrival at an airport in the Nigerian city of Lagos.

There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, which can kill from 60 to 90 percent of those who get infected.

Its known symptoms are diarrhea and vomiting, and causes both internal and external bleeding.

This deadly, incurable nature of Ebola has prompted Sierra Leone health officials to plead for public help in tracking down Korona, as well as dozens of other citizens who have tested positive but are now unaccounted for. 

TagsSaudatu Koroma, ebola patient on the run