Ebola virus strikes down three persons in Sierra Leone on HWN EBOLA UPDATE

Three more people have tested positive for Ebola from the same village in Sierra Leone’s northern Kambia district of the country where a 67-year-old woman died last week from the virus, federal health officials said.

Chief medical officer Dr. Brima Kargbo revealed on Tuesday the new patients came from among the 50 high-risk people identified as close relatives of the deceased woman.

Sierra Leone has had nearly 14,000 cases of Ebola and about 4,000 deaths since the outbreak began in 2014. But Kargbo said the latest outbreak is containable because its origin is traceable.

These are people who stayed in the same community,” he said, adding that “some even participated in washing of the corpse. So that is why the entire village was quarantined to avoid transmitting the infection from one place to another.”

The latest outbreak temporarily dashed the country’s hopes of being declared Ebola-free following the release from the hospital late last month of the country’s last known Ebola patient.

But Kargbo said Sierra Leoneans should not fear a widespread outbreak like a year ago. “Now we can actually trace the origin of the infection,” so the virus can more readily be contained, he emphasized.

In addition, Kargbo said, the experimental “Guinea ring vaccine” is being administered in the community.

We have actually vaccinated more than 130 people in that same community to protect them, but also to prevent those who may have come in contact with the deceased woman from actually getting the infection,” Kargbo said.

He said authorities are looking for the deceased woman’s niece, who is considered high risk. “The niece was the first person to become infected after the woman because she was more likely the caregiver,” he said.

Kargbo urged the niece to turn herself in and not fear arrest for violating the country’s Ebola procedures.

Source: Tribune, HWN Africa.