A new case of virus has surfaced in Liberia, which was declared free of the deadly virus in September, according to the World Health Organisation. Later Friday, a Liberian health official said the boy’s father and brother also had tested positive for the disease.
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The patient is a 10-year-old boy who fell sick on November 14 and was hospitalised in Liberia’s capital Monrovia three days later, the head of the United Nations agency’s Ebola response, Bruce Aylward, told journalists in Geneva.
The new cases in Liberia was announced just days after Guinea, where the epidemic started, said it had no more Ebola cases.
The report is a huge falldown for the nation as it has been struggling to eliminate the virus, which has killed approximately 11,300 people.
A ten-year-old boy is being treated for a confirmed case of Ebola in Liberia.
Dahn explained that the boy is from a family of six who are high risk contacts and that they are undergoing treatment at an Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia. “All of the healthcare workers who came into contact with the patient have been notified”, she told a news conference, according to Reuters.
He said the latest developments were the seventh time the World Health Organization suspected that a flare-up was related to the persistence of the virus in the population of survivors.
– WHO needs a single program to deal with health emergencies which must include “a global health emergency work force” and contingency funds to get people into the field quickly.
Aylward said the investigation is still under way, but the infection is likely related to a reintroduction from persistent virus in a survivor.
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Currently, Sierra Leone has been declared Ebola-free, and Guinea is in the 42-day countdown since its last known Ebola patient recovered, after which the country can be declared Ebola-free.
