Of particular concern is that some of the latest cases weren’t on any of the lists of people known to have been exposed to the virus and were diagnosed only after their deaths, making it extremely hard to figure out how they became infected and to whom they may have spread the virus. The announcement by the country’s National Ebola Response Center followed a resurgence of cases in the northeast of the country, where President Ernest Bai Koroma this month ordered troops to enforce quarantines and a nighttime curfew in the districts of Kambia and Port Loko.
Advertisement
Health officials say there are fears of further infections as the cases occurred in a densely populated slum.
Ebola also returned to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, last week after being absent for 18 consecutive days, officials there said.
Authorities are concerned that the case could lead to a mini-outbreak in the overcrowded fishing community, which has poor sanitation and is regularly hit by outbreaks of malaria and cholera. At the same time the virus is still raging in Sierra Leone and Guinea.
One of the deadliest viruses known to man, Ebola is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms, such as fever or vomiting, or the recently deceased. A fourth case was confirmed in government figures released Wednesday.
Conteh said he had received reports of specialist disposal teams demanding up to one million leones (about R2 900) from bereaved families for burials and promised a “full inquiry” to bring the practice to a stop.
The deadly virus, which has killed over 11,100 people mostly in West Africa in its worst outbreak ever, has been stamped out in neighboring Liberia, but is hanging on stubbornly in Guinea, where the Ebola outbreak was first reported in March 2014. The other six cases recorded in Sierra Leone over the past week were in the northern provinces of Port Loko and Kambia, health ministry data showed.
Advertisement
The country has extended a nationwide state of emergency until September. “People who have come into contact with Ebola but have not been identified, they go to another village and only then develop the symptoms of Ebola and then contaminate others”.
