Tag: Guinea

West Africa placed on high alert as first case of deadly Ebola-like Marburg virus with 88% fatality rate detected

End Time Headlines – August 10, 2021

(ETH) – A highly infectious hemorrhagic virus similar to Ebola has been detected for the first time in West Africa, triggering a rush to identify potential contacts and squash the outbreak before it spreads.

According to the Telegraph, the Marburg virus was detected in a male patient in Guinea who has since died, according to the World Health Organization. The pathogen is from the same family of viruses as Ebola, but it has no known vaccines or treatments and a fatality rate as high as 88 percent.

The individual sought treatment in the Gueckedou province, a region in southeast Guinea close to both Sierra Leone and Liberia, raising some concerns that it could jump across the borders. “The potential for the Marburg virus to spread far and wide means we need to stop it in its tracks,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, adding that Guinea’s health workers had instigated “quick investigative action”.

According to Sky News, Symptoms include a high fever and muscle pain, but some patients later suffer bleeding from their eyes and ears. After the male patient sought treatment and died in Gueckedou, the case was confirmed by a laboratory in Guinea and again by the Institut Pasteur in nearby Senegal. Contact tracing is under way, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Gueckedou was the location of Guinea’s 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak, which went on to kill 11,325 people. According to the Guardian, There have been 12 major Marburg outbreaks since 1967, mostly in southern and eastern Africa. Guinea’s new case was first identified last week, just two months after the country was declared free of Ebola following a brief flare-up earlier this year that killed 12 people.

The patient, who has since succumbed to the illness, first sought treatment at a local clinic before his condition rapidly deteriorated, the WHO said on Monday. Analysts at Guinea’s national haemorrhagic fever laboratory and the Institute Pasteur in Senegal later confirmed the Marburg diagnosis.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Guinea’s neighbors ‘not ready’ for resurgent Ebola, says WHO, as risk of cross-border transmission ‘very high’ in West Africa

RT – March 5, 2021

The World Health Organization has warned that the deadly Ebola virus is highly likely to spread across West Africa, but said some of Guinea’s neighbors are not prepared for a new Ebola outbreak.

“There are six neighboring countries to Guinea, and we conducted an assessment of readiness. Two of the countries are not ready and one is borderline and there are three countries more or less ready,” WHO Regional Emergency Director Abdou Salam Gueye said on Friday, by video conference from Guinea.

Guinea, which is bordered by Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, has registered 18 cases of the virus, and four of those people have died, the WHO’s Guinea representative, Georges Alfred Ki-Zerbo, said.

Gueye noted that none of the neighboring countries were prepared to start inoculating against the virus, adding that, regardless, there aren’t enough jabs available to vaccinate preventively.

“But those neighboring countries agreed on cross-border cooperation and coordination to control the outbreak,” he said.

Ki-Zerbo said that 1,604 people had been given the Ebola vaccine in Guinea, which is experiencing the first major outbreak of the virus since 2013-16 epidemic.

The 2013-16 outbreak in West Africa was larger than all previous outbreaks combined, with 28,646 reported cases and 11,323 registered deaths. Ebola is a highly infectious and deadly disease that causes hemorrhagic fever and internal bleeding. The virus is spread through contact with infected body fluids.

Ebola has also seen a resurgence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a number of cases confirmed in early February and two deaths.

https://www.rt.com

Ebola outbreak: WHO puts six countries on urgent alert as deaths spread

Simon Osborne – February 16, 2021

HEALTH chiefs have warned of a looming Ebola crisis after fresh outbreaks were reported in Guinea and Democratic Republic of Congo.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has put six neighbouring African countries on alert after a resurgence of the deadly virus. WHO’s Margaret Harris said: “We have already alerted the six countries around, including of course Sierra Leone and Liberia, and they are moving very fast to prepare and be ready and to look for any potential infection.”

Guinea has recorded up to 10 suspected cases of Ebola and five people have died since the start of a new outbreak of the deadly virus in the southeast of the West African nation.

Guinea’s ministry of health said it had identified 115 contacts of the known cases in the city of Nzerekore in the country’s south east and 10 in the capital Conakry since the outbreak was confirmed on Sunday.

Unlike the deadliest known outbreak, which tore through West Africa between 2013 and 2016, Guinean authorities have said they are better prepared to stop the spread of the virus.

https://www.express.co.uk