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The first case of Ebola in Côte d’Ivoire since 1994 was discovered this weekend in an 18-year-old Guinean.
Guinean authorities have announced that 58 people have been confined to their homes after being identified as contacts of a woman who contracted the Ebola virus.
The Ebola case was discovered in Côte d’Ivoire over the weekend in an 18-year-old Guinean who had traveled by road from Labé in Guinea, a journey of about 1,500 km (930 miles).
It was the first known case of the disease in Côte d’Ivoire since 1994.
Ebola is often fatal, causing severe fever and, in the worst case, unstoppable bleeding. It is spread through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.
The discovery in Côte d’Ivoire came nearly two months after the United Nations health agency declared the end of Guinea’s second Ebola outbreak, which began last year and killed 12 people.
“In Labé, 58 contacts have been identified,” the regional health director Elhadj Mamadou Houdy Bah told the news agency.
“The good news is that none of them are showing signs (of Ebola) yet, all are being monitored,” he added.
The driver of the vehicle that transported the young person with Ebola to Abidjan, the largest city in Côte d’Ivoire, is among the cases identified.
As the only center in Labé capable of treating such contact cases is currently full of patients with coronavirus, the Ebola contact cases have been placed in home containment for a 21-day observation period, Guinean health authorities said.
An Ebola epidemic between 2013 and 2016 killed 11,300 people across West Africa, including 2,300 people in Guinea.
The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that the toll has been underestimated.
On Tuesday, WHO said nine Ebola contact cases had been identified in Côte d’Ivoire, following the Guinean woman’s case there.
She is treated in a hospital in Abidjan, while health workers are vaccinated against the disease.
The inhabitants of the district of Abidjan where the young Guinean lived, are also vaccinated.
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