The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned West Africans to remain diligent in safeguarding against the Ebola virus. This after the latest outbreak in Guinea in which a young girl died from the virus. Although the number of recorded cases had decreased recently, four people have died from this latest surge, since February 29.
According to Reuters, the WHO had previously posted an all clear and told Guineans last December that Ebola was no longer actively transmitted. Now the WHO is warning citizens that Ebola can linger in the central nervous system, bodily fluids and eyes of survivors, giving it the potential to resurface at any time and spread throughout the population.
It was not immediately known how villagers from Korokpara and Nzerekore had contracted the virus. However, during the initial epidemic that claimed 2,500 lives, these two regions had “resisted efforts to fight the illness in the initial epidemic, ” according to Guinea health officials.
During the first epidemic in Guinea, which surfaced in Sierra Leone and Liberia, 11,300 people have died since 2013. It is believed Guinea was the starting point of the virus’s spread. By December last year, the WHO noted a decrease in deaths, and only recorded 2,500 people succumbing to the disease.
The most recent death of the four who have died, according to spokesman for the center that coordinates Guinea’s fight against the virus, Fode Tass Sylla, “the young female victim was hospitalized in Nzerekore prior to her death.”
Officials are actively tracking anyone who could have come into contact with the families of the victims.