Ironically. A few hours after the official announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) of the end of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the virus returns to play the spoilsport. Sierra Leone, one of three countries struck by the infectious disease along with Liberia and Guinea, has recorded a suspected case of death probably linked to the Ebola virus.
The victim is a student whose age and identity are not yet known. She died in Magburaka, in Tonkolili district in the north of the country. A first sample tested positive for the Ebola virus according to a senior official at the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health, contacted by AFP. Additional results of analyzes are expected this Friday.
The Ebola threat persists
The news comes in the wake of news of the end of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, after Guinea and Sierra Leone were declared free of the virus in December 2015. Liberia has not recorded any case of active transmission of the virus for 42 days, twice the incubation period.
But this new suspected case in Sierra Leone confirms that we must remain cautious and that it is too much to celebrate the disappearance of the disease in West Africa. The WHO is more reserved by insisting on the “permanent risk of new outbreaks during 2016 due to the persistence of the virus among the survivors”, in the words of AFP.
The Ebola epidemic started in December 2013 in Guinea before spreading to Liberia and Sierra Leone. In two years, the virus has claimed a total of 11,315 fatalities and infected a total of 28,637 people, most of them residing in the three West African countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone).
>> To read also: West Africa freed from Ebola
Ebola: a Mooc to understand the epidemic
