a woman was able to transmit the Ebola virus a year after being sick

A Liberian woman who probably contracted Ebola in 2014 may have infected three members of her family a year after her illness, doctors said in a study released Monday.

Previous cases have been reported. men who transmit Ebola to women through sexual transmission, since the virus can survive in sperm for more than a year, but the new case would be the first in which scientists indicate that the virus was spread by a woman after so long

The rare possibility of spreading Ebola so long after infection highlights the importance of monitoring survivors, particularly with the imminent end of the latest outbreak in Congo.

The most recent resurgence, announced in May, has confirmed 38 cases so far, including 14 deaths. The outbreak would be declared under control Wednesday, when the 42 days or two incubation periods will arrive from the last recorded case.

"The Ebola virus is hiding in places where it can escape antibodies from the immune system, so David Heymann professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was not involved in the most recent study.

Case concentration in Liberia was identified after the 15-year-old woman's son was diagnosed with Ebola in November 2015. Scientists continued to test the rest of the family: wife, husband and their three children

15-year-old boy died a few days later father and 8-year-old boy tested positive for Ebola, but both have recovered The 5-year-old son was not infected.

Doctors found Ebola antibodies in the mother, breast milk and the 2-month-old baby, suggesting the presence of the baby. an earlier infection and the possibility that the researchers s have reported genetic similarities between the father's virus and both children, and the strain that circulated during the 2014-2015 epidemic across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, which eventually killed more than 11 thousand people in the largest epidemic of Ebola in history.