With seven confirmed cases in the West African nation, including three deaths, officials declare a new Ebola outbreak.
Guinea has declared an Ebola epidemic after the deaths of three people and four others tested positive for the virus in the southeast of the country.
The seven people fell ill with diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding after attending a funeral in Goueke, near the border with Liberia. Infected patients have been isolated in treatment centers, the health ministry said on Sunday.
“Faced with this situation and in accordance with international health regulations, the Guinean government is declaring an Ebola epidemic,” the ministry said in a statement.
One of the victims was a nurse who fell ill in late January and was buried on February 1, the head of the National Health Security Agency, Sakoba Keita, told local media.
“Some people who attended this funeral began to have symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, bleeding and fever a few days later,” he said.
Health Minister Remy Lamah said officials were “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-2016 epidemic, which began in Guinea, left 11,300 dead in West Africa. The vast majority of cases were found in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The fight against Ebola will again put additional pressure on health services in Guinea during the coronavirus pandemic. The country, with about 12 million, has so far recorded 14,895 coronavirus infections and 84 deaths.
The Ebola virus causes severe vomiting and diarrhea and is spread through contact with body fluids. It has a much higher mortality rate than COVID-19, but unlike coronavirus it is not transmitted by asymptomatic carriers.
A second round of testing is being conducted to confirm the latest Ebola diagnosis and health workers are working to track and isolate contacts from the cases, according to state health agency ANSS.
He reported that Guinea would contact the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international health agencies to procure Ebola vaccines. Vaccines have greatly improved survival rates in recent years.
“WHO is stepping up efforts to prepare for and respond to this potential resurgence of #Ebola in West Africa, a region that suffered so much from Ebola in 2014,” regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said on Twitter .
“Response efforts”
The WHO has seen every new outbreak since 2016 with great concern, treating a recent one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as an international health emergency.
On Sunday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on Twitter that the agency had been informed of suspected cases of deadly disease in Guinea.
“Confirmatory tests have been conducted,” the tweet said, adding that WHO regional and national offices “supported preparedness and response efforts.”
Meanwhile, alongside Liberia, President George Weah on Sunday alerted his country’s health authorities.
Weah “has ordered the Liberian health authorities and related agents in the sector to intensify surveillance and preventive activities in the country following reports of the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus disease in neighboring Guinea,” he said. say your office in a statement.
The neighboring DRC has faced several outbreaks of the disease, and the WHO on Thursday confirmed a resurgence three months after authorities declared an end to the country’s latest outbreak.
The DRC, which declared a six-month outbreak in November, confirmed a fourth case in North Kivu province on Sunday.
The widespread use of Ebola vaccines, administered to more than 40,000 people, has helped curb the disease.
The spread of 2013-2016 accelerated the development of the Ebola vaccine, with a global emergency reserve of 500,000 doses planned to respond quickly to future outbreaks, the Gavi vaccine alliance said in January.