With seven cases confirmed in the West African country, including three deaths, officials declare new Ebola outbreak.
Guinea has declared an Ebola epidemic after three people were killed and four others tested positive for the virus in the southeast of the country.
The seven people became ill with diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding after attending a funeral in Goueke, near the Liberian border. The infected patients were isolated in treatment centers, the health ministry said Sunday.
“Faced with this situation and in line 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 at the end of January and was buried on February 1, Sakoba Keita, head of the national health safety agency, told local media.
“Some people who attended this funeral had 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 – that left 11,300 dead across West Africa. The vast majority of cases were in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The fight against Ebola will put extra emphasis on health services in Guinea during the coronavirus pandemic. The country of about 12 million has so far recorded 14,895 coronavirus infections and 84 deaths.
The Ebola virus causes severe vomiting and diarrhea and spreads 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 tests is being carried out to confirm the latest Ebola diagnosis and health workers are trying to locate and isolate the contact from the cases, ANSS said.
Guinea is reported to be contacting the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international health agencies to obtain Ebola vaccines. The vaccines have significantly improved survival rates over the past few years.
“WHO is working on the readiness and response to this potential revival of #Ebola in West Africa, a region that suffered so much from Ebola in 2014,” Matshidiso Moeti, Regional Director for Africa, said on Twitter.
‘Response Attempts’
The WHO has viewed each new outbreak since 2016 with great concern and considered a recent one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as an international health emergency.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted on Sunday that the agency had been notified of the suspected cases of the deadly disease in Guinea.
“Confirmation test underway,” reads the tweet, adding that the WTO’s regional and national offices “support readiness and response efforts”.
Meanwhile next door in Liberia, President George Weah on Sunday put his country’s health authorities on a strong stand.
Weah ‘has given a mandate to the Liberian health authorities and related stakeholders in the sector to increase the country’s surveillance and preventive activities following reports of the rise of the deadly Ebola virus disease in surrounding Guinea’, his office said in said a statement.
The neighboring country’s DRC has faced several outbreaks of the disease, while the WHO on Thursday confirmed a resurgence three months after authorities declared the end of the country’s latest outbreak.
The DRC, which declared the six-month epidemic in November, confirmed a fourth case in North Kivu province on Sunday.
The widespread use of Ebola vaccines, which have been administered to more than 40,000 people, has helped combat the disease.
The 2013-2016 spread accelerated the development of the Ebola vaccine, with a worldwide emergency supply of 500,000 doses planned to respond quickly to future outbreaks, the vaccine alliance Gavi said in January.