Health authorities in Guinea on February 14, declared an outbreak of Ebola after three people died from the deadly viral contagious disease that causes severe bleeding, organ failure. The outbreak was declared in the country’s rural community of Gouéké in N’Zerekore prefecture after three Ebola cases were confirmed by the national laboratory, marking the first time the disease has been reported in the country since an outbreak ended in 2016. This is according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa. WHO said that initial investigations found that a nurse from the local health facility died on January 28 this year. Following her burial, six people who attended the funeral reported Ebola-like symptoms and two of them have since died, while the other four have been hospitalised. The issue comes at the time WHO and Humanitarian agencies are rushing to curb the spread of the current Ebola outbreak in DR Congo after three cases were confirmed in one week in the country. Guinea was one of the three most-affected countries in West Africa during the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak, the largest since the virus was first discovered in 1976. During the West Africa Ebola outbreak, there were 28, 000 cases, including 11, 000 deaths, WHO said, indicating that the outbreak, which struck about six years, started in Guinea and then moved across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia. “It’s a huge concern to see the resurgence of Ebola in Guinea, a country which has already suffered so much from the disease,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa. However, he noted, banking on the expertise and experience built during the previous outbreak, health teams in Guinea are on the move to quickly trace the path of the virus and curb further infections. “WHO is supporting the authorities to set up testing, contact-tracing and treatment structures and to bring the overall response to full speed.” WHO staff are already on the ground, the UN health agency said. In addition to surveillance, they will help with ramping up infection prevention and control of health facilities and other key locations and reaching out to communities to ensure they take a key role in the response. WHO says it’s supporting the country to procure the Ebola vaccine, which has proven instrumental in controlling the outbreaks in DR Congo. Samples of the confirmed cases have been sent to the Institut Pasteur in Senegal for a full genome sequencing to identify the strain of the Ebola virus. With the epicentre of the current outbreak in a border area, WHO says it’s already working with health authorities in Liberia and Sierra Leone to beef up community surveillance of cases in their border districts as well as strengthening their capacity to test for cases and conduct surveillance in health facilities.
