Medics track Ebola carrier suspects in Guinea

Medics in Guinea tracked down suspected carriers of the Ebola virus, after they fled in southeastern town where the country’s first case in nearly a month was detected.

A health agency spokesman said on Friday, resetting a count that had begun last week to declaring the country free of the virus.

The case was detected in less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) in Soulouta, from where an ongoing Ebola outbreak began in February.

“It is still unclear if this is a contact case, investigation is still ongoing,” the spokesman said.

The West African country’s World Health Organization (WHO) representative, Georges Alfred Ki-Zerbo said the case followed a cluster of suspicious deaths in Soulouta.

“This illustrates the need for enhanced monitoring in the local region also in other regions to contain this new cluster as soon as possible,” he said.

After the case was diagnosed, some residents initially barricaded roads into the town, denying access to response teams who were now searching for other suspected Ebola cases who had fled.

A total of 15 people have tested positive for Ebola and nine have died during the current outbreak. It marked the first resurgence of the virus in Guinea since its deadliest epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone between 2013 and 2016.

An Ebola outbreak is typically declared over, once 42 days have passed following a second negative test of blood samples from the last confirmed case.

Guinea began a vaccination campaign to contain the spread of the virus, which causes severe bleeding and organ failure and is spread through contact with body fluids, at the end of February.

The WHO said resurgence is likely to have been sparked by a dormant infection in the human population from the last Ebola outbreak rather than from the virus jumping the species barrier again.

Kamila/Reuters