WHO warns six African countries after Ebola outbreaks

CONAKRY (Reuters) – The World Health Organization has asked six African countries to be alert to possible Ebola infections, as Guinea reported new cases on Tuesday and the Democratic Republic of Congo said its new infections were the resurgence of a previous outbreak.

Guinea declared an outbreak of the virus on Sunday, the first return of the disease since the 2013-2016 outbreak, while Congo confirmed four new cases this month.

Health officials were quick to respond to cases in Guinea, eager to prevent a repeat of the latest outbreak in West Africa, which killed more than 11,300 people, mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the worst Ebola epidemic on record.

“We have already warned the six countries around, including, of course, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and they are acting very fast to prepare and be ready and to look for any potential infections,” said Margaret Harris of WHO at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday.

Guinea’s neighbors include Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea has so far registered 10 suspected cases of Ebola and five deaths. Since the outbreak’s declaration on Sunday, the Ministry of Health has identified 115 contacts from known cases in the city of Nzerekore and 10 in the capital Conakry, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

The sequencing of genes from Ebola samples from Congo and Guinea is being carried out to learn more about the origins of the outbreaks and to identify the strains, according to the WHO.

As a result, Congo has confirmed that its latest cases are not linked to a new variant of Ebola, but represent a resurgence of its tenth outbreak, the second largest on record that caused more than 2,200 deaths in 2018-2020.

“As for the infection, we cannot yet identify its origin,” said the provincial Health Minister, Eugene Nzanzu Salita, referring to how the first person to become ill in this resurgence caught the virus.

Since the devastating epidemic in West Africa, the development of vaccines and treatments has greatly improved survival rates and containment efforts.

The spread of the disease can harm the regions’ underfunded health systems, which are also battling the coronavirus pandemic. Ivory Coast, Mali and Sierra Leone have launched plans to prevent any potential spread and strengthen border controls.

The Ebola virus can cause severe bleeding and organ failure and is transmitted by contact with body fluids. It has a much higher mortality rate than COVID-19, but, unlike coronavirus, it is not transmitted by asymptomatic carriers.