CONAKRY (Reuters) – Guinea declared a new Ebola outbreak on Sunday when tests turned positive after three people died and four fell ill in the south-east, the first resurgence of the disease there since the world’s worst outbreak of 2013-2016.
Patients fell ill with diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding after attending a funeral in Goueke sub-prefecture. Those still alive have been isolated in treatment centers, the health ministry said.
“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.
The person buried on February 1 was a nurse at a local health center and died after being transferred for treatment in Nzerekore, a town near the border with Liberia and Ivory Coast.
The 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa began in Nzerekore, whose proximity to busy borders hampered efforts to contain the virus. It killed at least 11,300 people, with the vast majority of cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The fight against Ebola will again put additional pressure on health services in Guinea, as they are also fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Guinea, a country of about 12 million people, 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.
The ministry said health workers are trying to track down and isolate contacts from Ebola cases and will open a treatment center in Goueke, less than an hour’s drive from Nzerekore.
Authorities have also asked the World Health Organization (WHO) for vaccines against Ebola, he said. New vaccines have greatly improved survival rates in recent years.
“It is a huge concern to see the resurgence of Ebola in Guinea, a country that has already suffered so much from the disease,” WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement.
Given the proximity of the new outbreak to the border, WHO is working with the health authorities of Liberia and Sierra Leone to strengthen surveillance and testing capabilities, according to the statement.
Vaccines and improved treatments helped efforts to end the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record, which was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo last June after nearly two years and more than 2,200 deaths.
But on Sunday, the Democratic Republic of Congo reported a fourth new case of Ebola in North Kivu province, where the resurgence of the virus was announced on February 7th.
Written by Alessandra Prentice; Edited by Frances Kerry and David Goodman