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Two Ebola deaths and three suspected cases in Guinea 'flare-up'

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World Health Organisation had just announced ‘milestone’ of no new infections in neighbouring Sierra Leone when latest fatalities came to light

Two people from the same family have died from Ebola in Guinea, the government has said, in the first re-emergence of the virus in the country since an outbreak was declared over in December 2015.

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Reuters - (Reporting by Saliou Samb; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by David Gregorio) - March 19, 2016

CONAKRY, March 19 (Reuters) - A fourth person has died of Ebola in Guinea in the latest flare up of an epidemic that has killed more than 11,300 people in that country, Sierra Leone and Liberia since 2013 but now claims few victims.

"The young girl who was hospitalized at the Ebola treatment centre in Nzerekore is dead," said Fode Tass Sylla, spokesman for the centre that coordinates Guinea's fight against the virus.

Three others have died of the virus since Feb. 29. Health workers on Saturday also stepped up efforts to trace anyone who could have come into contact with the family. . . .

. . . It was not immediately clear how the villagers from Korokpara, around 100 km (60 miles) from Nzerekore, had contracted the disease but the area had previously resisted efforts to fight the illness in the initial epidemic.

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scientificamerican.com - Reuters - by Kieran Guilbert - March 18, 2016

DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Health workers are rushing to the site of a fresh Ebola outbreak in Guinea to bolster efforts to contain the virus and prepare for the likelihood of more cases, aid agencies said on Friday.

Four people in the southern region of Nzerekore were tested on Thursday and two of them were found to have Ebola. They were all from Korokpara, a village where three people from the same family have died in recent weeks from diarrhoea and vomiting.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and aid agencies have sent experts to investigate the origin of the new cases and to identify, isolate, vaccinate and monitor all of their contacts.

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un.org

Ebola: UN health agency sends specialists to help contain flare-up in Guinea

18 March 2016 – The United Nations health agency has dispatched a team of specialists to Guinea after 2 new cases of Ebola were confirmed yesterday, the first re-emergence of the deadly virus in the Western African country since its original outbreak was declared over on 29 December 2015.

Guinea’s National Emergency Response Centre is convening a meeting today to further coordinate a rapid response to contain the flare-up, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a press release.

“WHO continues to stress that Sierra Leone, as well as Liberia and Guinea, are still at risk of Ebola flare-ups, largely due to virus persistence in some survivors, and must remain on high alert and ready to respond,” the agency said.

Guinean health officials in the region alerted WHO and partners on Wednesday to three unexplained deaths in recent weeks in Koropara, a village in the southern prefecture of Nzérékoré.

Yesterday, Guinea’s Ministry of Health, WHO, the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) sent in investigators. Samples were taken from four individuals. A mother and her 5-year-old son, relatives of the decreased, have been taken to a treatment facility after the two confirmed positive for Ebola virus in lab tests.

In coordination with Guinea’s health ministry, WHO today deployed an initial team of epidemiologists, surveillance experts, vaccinators, social mobilizers, contact tracers and an anthropologist to support an inter-agency response.

More specialists are expected to arrive in the coming days. Response teams will work to investigate the origin of the new infections and to identify, isolate, vaccinate and monitor all contacts of the new cases and those who died.

The new infections in Guinea were confirmed on the same day that WHO declared the end of the latest Ebola flare-up in neighbouring Sierra Leone. WHO said recurrences of the disease should be anticipated and that the 3 Ebola-affected countries must maintain strong capacity to prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks.

The worst Ebola outbreak in history first began in Guinea in December 2013 and has since claimed more than 11,300 lives, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.


News Tracker: past stories on this issue

UN confirms Sierra Leone’s Ebola flare-up is over, but cautions more are possible

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53481#.VvDe78e63dl

Hundreds of contacts identified and monitored in new Ebola flare-up in Guinea
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/guinea-flareup-update/en/

 

 

af.reuters.com - (Reporting by Saliou Samb; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by G Crosse, Toni Reinhold)

CONAKRY, March 21 (Reuters) - Guinea's Ebola coordination unit has traced an estimated 816 people who may have come into contact with victims of the disease or their corpses during a recent flare-up in a village in the country's southeast, a health official said on Monday.

Guinea said on Thursday that it had discovered new cases of Ebola just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared neighbouring Sierra Leone's latest outbreak over. Four people have died in the flare-up in Porokpara.

"Since the start of the tracing on Saturday, we have traced 816 contacts in 107 families," Fode Tass Sylla, spokesman for the coordination unit, said on state television. "We are optimistic because everyone is motivated and cooperating."

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contagionlive.com - by Sarah Anwar - March 24, 2016

. . . Of the individuals who were in close contact with the infected family, WHO reports that some have tested positive for Ebola. Samples from these lab-confirmed cases have ruled out the possibility of the disease originating from the animal population. Test samples from both the confirmed cases and suspected high-risk contacts have been sent to a Conakry lab for further testing. . . .

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