TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
WHO has alerted six African countries after Ebola outbreaks
Guinea declared a new Ebola outbreak on Sunday in the first resurgence of the disease there since the 2013-2016 outbreak, while the Democratic Republic of Congo reported a resurgence of the virus on Feb. 7.
Change Size
This file photograph taken on November 10, 2014, shows a banner on the wall of the new Ebola Treatment Centre built by the United States army personnel in Tubmanburg, the provincial capital of Bomi County in western Liberia. Liberian President George Weah on February 14, 2021, put the country's health authorities on heightened alert after four people died of Ebola in neighbouring Guinea, the first resurgence of the disease in five years. Weah (Agence France Presse/Zoom Dosso)
T
he World Health Organization has alerted six countries to watch out for potential Ebola cases after fresh outbreaks in Guinea and Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
Guinea declared a new Ebola outbreak on Sunday in the first resurgence of the disease there since the 2013-2016 outbreak, while the Democratic Republic of Congo reported a resurgence of the virus on Feb. 7.
"We have already alerted the six countries around, including of course Sierra Leone and Liberia, and they are moving very fast to prepare and be ready and to look for any potential infection," the WHO's Margaret Harris told a Geneva briefing. She did not specify the other countries.
Harris added that health authorities had identified close to 300 Ebola contacts in the Congo outbreak and around 109 in the Guinea one.
Gene sequencing of Ebola samples from both Congo and Guinea to learn more about origins of new outbreaks and identify the strains was under way, she said.
"We don't know if this is down to Ebola persisting in the human population or if it's simply moving again from the animal population but the genetic sequencing that's ongoing will help with that information," she said.
AFP reported that five people have died of Ebola virus in Guinea, the health agency said on Monday, as the government and aid groups began to roll out their response to the outbreak.
Guinea announced the outbreak on Saturday -- the first in West Africa since a 2013-2016 epidemic that left more than 11,300 dead in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
According to an epidemiological report by the country's health agency dated February 15, five people have now succumbed to the virus, rising from a death toll of four reported earlier on Monday.
Only one of the victims was confirmed positive for Ebola, with the remaining four listed as "probable cases".
Two other people have tested positive, the health agency said, while another 10 are showing symptoms.
The first confirmed victim was a 51-year-old nurse, who died in late January.
She was from Nzerekore near the town of Gouecke in the forested south of the
