Four people died of Ebola in Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, the health minister said on Saturday.
Remy Lamah told AFP that officials are “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-16 epidemic – which started in Guinea – left 11,300 dead 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, the head of the National Health Security Agency, Sakoba Keita, told local media. “Among those who participated in the burial, eight people showed symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding,” he said. “Three of them died and another four are in the hospital.”
The four deaths from Ebola hemorrhagic fever occurred in the southeastern region of Nzerekore, he said.
Keita also told local media that a patient “escaped” but was found and hospitalized in the capital Conakry. He confirmed the comments to AFP without giving further details.
The World Health Organization has observed each new outbreak since 2016 with great concern, treating the most recent in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as an international health emergency.
The DRC has faced several outbreaks of the disease, with WHO confirming on Thursday a resurgence three months after authorities declared the end of the last outbreak in the country.
The country had declared the end of the six-month epidemic in November. It was the 11th Ebola outbreak in the country, causing 55 deaths in 130 cases.
The widespread use of vaccines, administered to more than 40,000 people, helped to contain the disease.
The 2013-16 outbreak accelerated the development of an Ebola vaccine, with a global emergency stockpile of 500,000 doses planned to respond quickly to future outbreaks, the Gavi vaccine alliance said in January.