By Prince Musa in Kenema
Controversy has emerged in Kenema after the corpse of a woman who was allegedly murdered by her husband tested positive for COVID-19.
Sarah Conteh was allegedly killed by Alie Jalloh in Deima Town, Kandu Leppiama Chiefdom. Police say the incident occurred on May 15.
Sergeant James Musa, police spokesperson for the district, said the suspect killed his wife in the bush after they had some disagreement.
"The suspect, Allie Jalloh, went to bush with his wife Sarah Conteh now deceased, and argument started between them. The suspect lost his temper and took a stick and hit the woman on her head," Sgt Musa explained.
A postmortem has been done and the result seems consistent with the preliminary investigation of the police, pointing to neurogenic shock, fracture and hemorrhage in the skull.
But the incident has caused further stir in the district after swab result showed that she was also positive of COVID-19.
Jalloh who was in Police cell has since been taken to quarantine and Police say he will be charged to court after his quarantine ends.
Deima Town, where the deceased and the suspect lived, has not recorded any case of Covid-19, leaving skeptics wondering how she could have contracted the virus.
But health authorities in the district are in no doubt.
The head of Laboratory at the Kenema Government Hospital, Jimmy Massallay, who conducted the postmortem on Sarah’s corpse, told Politico that he’d advised against the corpse been taken for burial before the swab test result came out.
"I did the post-mortem on the body. But I advised that only after the test result was out before the body could be released for burial," he said, adding that he was called later in the day and told that the body had been taken to the village for burial.
“When the result was out, they told me she was positive of Covid-19. I immediately gave an instruction to the team from the hospital that went with the body to tell the family not to bury the body until we got there, because we have the equipment to handle the burial for Covid-19 victims,” Massalay said.
Massalay and his team were able to make it in time to do the burial themselves on the 17th of May.
But there are lingering concerns about the number of people that might have come in contact with the body, between transporting it to the hospital for postmortem and taking it from the hospital back home for burial.
District Medical Officer, Dr Donald Grant, said only high risk contacts would be quarantined, including the husband of the deceased who is also the murder suspect.
Politico understands that the police officers who arrested the suspect in the case have not been quarantined as secondary contacts; Jalloh’s cell mates have also not been quarantined.
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