 |
|
Health workers wash
their hands after taking a blood specimen from a child to test for the Ebola
virus in an area were a 17-year old boy died from the virus on the outskirts of
Monrovia, Liberia. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)
|
A second person in Liberia has died from Ebola in the
latest resurgence of the deadly disease in the West African nation, an official
said Wednesday.
The woman in her early 20s who died on July 12 was linked
to the 17-year-old boy who died last month, Deputy Health Minister Tolbert
Nyenswah told The Associated Press. Three other confirmed cases are being
treated in Monrovia, he said.
Some of the more than 120 people under observation in
Nedowein, southeast of Monrovia, could be discharged once they complete 21 days
of quarantine and show no signs of infection, he said.
"By the weekend we should be having a big ceremony
to discharge and reintegrate them into the community," he said.
Liberia lost more than 4,800 lives to Ebola before it
contained transmission in May. These are the first known cases since then.
Samples taken from the 17-year-old boy who died from
Ebola in Liberia on June 28 shows the virus is genetically similar to viruses
that infected many people in the same area more than six months ago, the World
Health Organization has said.
That finding by genetic sequencing suggests it is
unlikely the virus was caught from travel to infected areas of Guinea or Sierra
Leone, where the virus is hanging on, or from an animal, the organization said.
The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 11,200 people, mostly in Liberia, Guinea
and Sierra Leone.
Nyenswah said early action to monitor contacts and
isolate those that are sick means that Liberia is "in control of the
outbreak."
The virus spreads
through direct contact with an Ebola patient's blood or other body fluids. Once
patients recover, health officials say they aren't contagious, except it could
still be in semen. The bodies of people killed by Ebola are also highly
infectious.
No comments:
Post a Comment