EBOLA ALERT- EBOLA RETURNS TO LIBERIA AFTER PROPOSED ERADICATION

The corpse of a 17-year-old boy has tested
positive for Ebola in Liberia, the country’s deputy
Health Minister said late Monday. He added that
no other case had been reported.
Tolbert Nyenswah, who is also head of the
country’s Ebola response, told newsmen that the
teenager died June 24 in Nedowein, a town
situated close to the country’s international
airport, about 48 kilometres south of the capital,
and was given a safe burial the next day.
Liberia had been the country hardest hit by last
year’s Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The World
Health Organisation, WHO, declared Liberia Ebola-
free on May 9 after the country went 42 days
without reporting a case.
Nyenswah said: “We have said over and over
again that there was the possibility of a
resurgence of the virus in Liberia. But our
capacity is very strong.”
The deadly virus, which has killed over 11,100
people mostly in West Africa in its worst outbreak
ever, is hanging on stubbornly in Guinea, where
the Ebola outbreak was first reported in March
2014, and in Sierra Leone.
It was not known how the 17-year-old contracted
Ebola. The town where the teenager died is far
from the borders with Sierra Leone and Guinea,
so Nyenswah said they were investigating
whether his case might be linked to travel.
Specimens were taken from the corpse before
burial, and the tests later came back positive.
“The only complication is that the person died
before we tested the body as part of our
surveillance system of testing living and dead
people,” Nyenswah said.
Nyenswah said teams are already doing contact
tracing in the Nedowein area.
“There is no need for pandemonium; people
should go about their normal business,” he said.
He called the Ebola testing of the young man’s
corpse “a success story for our surveillance
system.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
had warned earlier this month that as long as
there is one Ebola case in West Africa “all
countries are at risk.”