Suspicion of a second case of Ebola in Côte d’Ivoire

Screenshot of the Ebola Fighters trailer Photo: Sina Weibo

The United Nations health agency said on Tuesday that a second suspected case of infection with the deadly Ebola virus had been detected in Côte d’Ivoire.

World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said as of Monday there had been one confirmed and one suspected case, with nine contacts identified so far.

No deaths have been reported.

He said the WHO was “very concerned” about the ability of the virus to spread in the economic center of the West African country, Abidjan, with a population of over 4 million.

Ebola, which is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, causes severe fever and, in the worst case, unstoppable bleeding.

The confirmed case was identified as an 18-year-old Guinean who traveled overland and arrived in Abidjan on August 11 on a bus. When she left Guinea, she was already showing symptoms that kept getting worse.

She was admitted to the hospital on August 12 with a fever and is currently receiving treatment.

“Preliminary investigations and genomic sequencing to identify the strain show that it is probably the Zaire strain of the virus,” Jasarevic told AFP.

“Further investigations are needed to confirm these early results.”

This strain was behind a four-month-long Ebola outbreak that killed 12 people in Guinea earlier in 2021 and was declared over on June 19.

The same strain killed more than 11,300 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone between 2013 and 2016.

AFP