WHO warns six African countries after Ebola outbreaks

CONAKRY (Reuters) – The World Health Organization has called on six African countries to be vigilant for possible Ebola infections, as Guinea reported new cases on Tuesday and the Democratic Republic of Congo said its new infections were a revival of a previous outbreak.

Guinea on Sunday declared an outbreak of the virus for the first time that the disease has returned there since the outbreak of 2013-2016, while the Congo confirmed four new cases this month.

Health authorities rushed to respond to the cases in Guinea, which was eager to prevent the recurrence of the latest outbreak in West Africa, which killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the worst Ebola outbreak. -epidemic.

“We have already warned the six countries in the region, including Sierra Leone and Liberia, and they are moving very fast to prepare and be ready and look for possible infections,” Margaret Harris of the WHO said on Tuesday. briefing in Geneva said.

Guinea’s neighbors include Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea has so far recorded up to ten suspected cases of Ebola and five deaths. Since the outbreak was declared Sunday, 115 contacts of the known cases have been identified in the city of Nzerekore and 10 in the capital Conakry, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

Genetic sequencing of Ebola samples from both Congo and Guinea is being carried out, according to the WHO, to find out more about the origin of the outbreaks and to identify the strains.

As a result, the Congo has confirmed that its latest cases are not linked to a new Ebola variant, but that it is the revival of its tenth outbreak, the second largest record that caused more than 2,200 deaths in 2018-2020.

“As far as the infection is concerned, we can not yet identify its origin,” said provincial health minister Eugene Nzanzu Salita, referring to how the first person to fall ill in this boom contracted the virus.

Since the devastating epidemic in West Africa, the development of vaccines and treatments has significantly improved survival rates and containment efforts.

Further spread of the disease could paralyze the regions’ underfunded health systems, which are also fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Sierra Leone have launched plans to halt potential proliferation and enhanced border controls.

The Ebola virus can cause severe bleeding and organ failure and spread through contact with body fluids. It has a much higher mortality rate than COVID-19, but unlike the coronavirus, it is not transmitted by asymptomatic carriers.