Two bodies
have tested positive for Ebola in Guinea, the government said, months after the
outbreak was declared over in the West African country and hours after Sierra
Leone announced the end of a recent flare-up.
The cases
emerged from the same family in Koropara, in the N'Zerekore prefecture, about
600 miles south east of Guinea's capital, Conakry, said Ibrahima Sylla, a
spokesman for the national effort against Ebola.
Mr Sylla
said there are three other probable cases, and health authorities are taking appropriate
measures to contain the spread.
An emergency
meeting will be held with the Ministry of Health, said Sakoba Keita, the
national co-ordinator of the fight against Ebola.
The deputy
director general of the N'Zerekore Regional Hospital, Zoba Guilavogui, had
earlier said a man and woman from the same family died of an illness like
Ebola, but tests were pending.
Guinea was
declared free from Ebola on December 29. It would be celebrating the end of its
90-day heightened surveillance period at the end of March.
The
deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has killed more than 11,300 people, mostly
in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
The World
Health Organisation declared the outbreak over on January 14 when Liberia
became the last of the three countries to have ended transmissions. The next
day, however, a corpse tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone, which saw a
flare-up of another case.
The WHO and
Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health and Sanitation announced the end of that
Ebola flare-up on Thursday. The declaration came 42 days - two 21-day
incubation cycles of the virus - since the last confirmed Ebola patient tested
negative for a second time.
Despite
gains, experts warn flare-ups are likely.
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