CONAKRY (Reuters) – Guinea announced another Ebola outbreak on Sunday as tests came back positive for the virus after three people died and four fell ill in the Southeast – the first resurgence of the disease there since the worst outbreak in the world in 2013-2016 .
The patients became ill with diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding after attending a funeral in Goueke’s 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 announcing 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 to Nzerekore, a town near the border with Liberia and the Ivory Coast.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2013-2016 started in Nzerekore, whose proximity to busy borders hampered efforts to contain the virus. Subsequently, at least 11,300 people died, the vast majority of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Fighting Ebola again will put an extra burden on health services in Guinea, as they also fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Guinea, a country of about 12 million inhabitants, has recorded 14,895 coronavirus infections and 84 deaths so far.
Ebola virus causes violent vomiting and diarrhea and is 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.
The ministry said health workers are trying to track down and isolate the contacts of the 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 Ebola vaccines. The new vaccines have greatly improved survival rates in recent years.
“It’s a huge concern to see the resurgence of Ebola in Guinea, a country that has already suffered so much from the disease,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa, said in a statement.
Given how close the new outbreak is to the border, the WHO is working with health authorities in Liberia and Sierra Leone to strengthen monitoring and testing capabilities, the statement said.
The vaccines and improved treatments have contributed to efforts to end the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record, declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo last June after nearly two years and more than 2,200 deaths.
But on Sunday, the DRC reported a fourth new case of Ebola in North Kivu province, where a resurgence of the virus was announced Feb. 7.
Written by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Frances Kerry and David Goodman