Three Ebola deaths in Guinea: the authorities have confirmed that the country is in an “epidemic situation”

At least three people have died in Guinea due to news “epidemic situation“Hemorrhagic fever Ebola, five years after the end of the previous epidemic, the head of the Guinean health agency, Sakoba Keita, said on Sunday.

“Very early this morning, the Conakry laboratory confirmed the presence of the Ebola virus,” El Keita said after an emergency meeting in Conakry, who reported seven cases, including three fatal.

The Minister of Health Rémy Lamah had mentioned a death toll of four on Saturday evening, a figure updated after analysis.

According to information provided by the Guinean National Health Security Agency (ANSS), it is known that a nurse fell ill with symptoms of Ebola at the end of January and died in the district of Gouécké, near the city ​​of N’Zérékoré (south-east). Eight people who attended his funeral (on February 1) subsequently also exhibited symptoms – diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding – and three of them also died.

Ebola had not been detected in Guinea-Conakry since the end of the great epidemic that rocked West Africa between 2014 and 2016 and the first cases of which had appeared precisely in this country at the end of 2013. C ‘was the worst in history with 11,300 dead and more than 28,500 people infected, although those figures, according to the WHO, could be conservative.

Concern at WHO

The World Health Organization on Sunday expressed concern over the likely resurgence of Ebola in Guinea, the country where the epidemic that triggered the worst outbreak of the disease in history at the end of 2013 emerged in West Africa, with at least 11,300 dead.

“Very concerned by reports of 4 suspected deaths from Ebola in Guinea. WHO accelerates preparedness and response efforts for potential Ebola resurgence in West Africa, a region that suffered greatly from Ebola in 2014WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said via Twitter. A few hours earlier, in the night, the director general of the WHO, Tedro Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had confirmed that the UN agency was aware of the possible cases in Guinea and that the final confirmatory tests were underway.

“We will rapidly deploy the necessary capacities to support Guinea, which already has a lot of experience,” Professor Alfred George Ki-Zerbo told reporters after a meeting with local health authorities. “The arsenal is now much larger and we must take advantage of it to be able to contain this situation as quickly as possible”, he added.

Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with contaminated blood and body fluids from people or animals, causes hemorrhagic fever and can lead to a 90% death rate if not treated in time.

At the moment, there are two experimental vaccines, but there is no treatment capable of curing the virus, which has repeatedly caused terror in Africa.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

MORE ON THIS TOPIC:

Two Ebola cases detected in Guinea and new epidemic fears

Chile estimates that by February 25 it will have vaccinated 4 million people against the coronavirus