After COVID-19, South Africa Declares New Ebola Outbreak: Here's All You Need To Know About It
Even as the world is scrambling to fight the deadly coronavirus, another deadlier outbreak has come back to haunt the human race.?
The health officials in the West African nation of Guinea has said that it is fighting a new outbreak of Ebola, with at least three deaths for the first time since 2016. when a two-year outbreak in the region ended after killing around 11,000 people.
The two women and one man who died were among the seven persons who fell ill with symptoms including diarrhoea, vomiting and bleeding after attending a burial of a nurse in the southeast of the country on February 1, the Health Ministry said.
Who is the original source of outbreak?
Guinea health chief Sakoba Keita informed that a nurse from a local health facility near the Liberian border in southeastern Guinea died on January 28, 2021, and some people who attended her burial began to have ¡°symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting, bleeding and fever a few days later.¡±?
Some samples from those patients were tested in a laboratory, set up in the same region by the European Union, which established that the patients were infected with Ebola virus. But the experts are yet to determine the patient zero while an investigation has been ordered to determine the home villages of all who attended the funeral ceremony of the nurse in order to carry out contact tracing.
What are health experts saying?
While the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has already stretched the health resources around the globe, the Ebola outbreak has prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to rush assistance to Guinea.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO¡¯s regional director for Africa, said in a statement that the virus outbreak in Guinea is a huge concern, given the country has ¡°already suffered so much from the disease.¡± ¡°However, banking on the expertise and experience built during the previous outbreak, health teams in Guinea are on the move to quickly trace the path of the virus and curb further infections,¡± Moeti added.
WHO representative Alfred George Ki-Zerbo told a press briefing, "We are going to rapidly deploy crucial assets to help Guinea. "The WHO is on full alert and is in contact with the manufacturer (of a vaccine) to ensure the necessary doses are made available as quickly as possible to help fight back."? ??
Why is it a big concern?
Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia bore the brunt of the previous epidemic. Like many countries in West Africa, Guinea has limited health resources. It has also recorded some 15,000 COVID-19 cases and 84 deaths.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) often proves fatal for humans if untreated, with an average case fatality rate around 50 per cent and has varied from 25 per cent to 90 per cent in past outbreaks. The virus transmission takes place from wild animals to humans and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.?
According to the health chief, diagnosis time has been reduced to less than two weeks compared with three-and-a-half months in 2014.
