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Four people have died of Ebola in Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, the health minister said Saturday.
Remy Lamah told AFP officials that he was “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-2016 epidemic – which began in Guinea – that killed 11,300 across the region.
One of the last victims in Guinea was a nurse who fell ill in late January and was buried on February 1, National Health Security Agency chief Sakoba Keita told local media.
“Among those who attended the funeral, eight people showed symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding,” he said.
“Three of them have died and four others are in hospital.”
The four deaths from Ebola hemorrhagic fever occurred in southeastern Nzerekore, he said.
Keita also told local media that a patient had “escaped” but was found and hospitalized in the capital, Conakry. He confirmed the comments to AFP without providing further details.
The World Health Organization has viewed each new outbreak since 2016 with grave concern, treating the most recent one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an international health emergency.
DR Congo has faced several outbreaks of the disease, with WHO on Thursday confirming a resurgence three months after authorities announced the end of the country’s latest outbreak.
The country had stated that the six-month epidemic was over in November. It was the eleventh Ebola outbreak in the country, killing 55 of 130 cases.
The widespread use of vaccinations, given to more than 40,000 people, helped to contain the disease.
The 2013-2016 outbreak accelerated the development of an Ebola vaccine, with a global emergency supply of 500,000 doses planned to respond quickly to future outbreaks, the vaccine alliance Gavi said in January.
(AFP)