Liberia says it is dealing with the first case of suspected Ebola to have originated within its own borders, unconnected to the epidemic raging in neighbouring Guinea, as Mali also detected three suspected victims.
If confirmed, the case in Liberia's eastern town of Tapeta on Thursday would mark a worrying development in the fight against Ebola, as cases so far have been attributed to people returning with the infection from Guinea, where 84 people have died.
"We have a case in Tapeta where a hunter who has not had any contact with anyone coming from Guinea got sick," chief medical officer Bernice Dahn told AFP.
"He was rushed to the hospital and died 30 minutes later. He never had any interaction with someone suspected to be a carrier of the virus and he has never gone to Guinea. This was an a isolated case."
The fruit bat, thought to be the host of the highly contagious Ebola virus, is a delicacy in the region straddling Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and experts suspect bush meat caught by huntsmen may be the source of the outbreak.
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Tapeta, a small town in the eastern county of Nimba, is 400 kilometres from the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in southern Guinea, at least a five-hour drive and much further from the border than other suspected cases.
"The huntsman has 500 traps in the forest. He felt sick in the forest and was rushed to the hospital," Dahn said, adding that seven new patients brought the total suspected Ebola cases in Liberia to 14.
The tropical virus leads to haemorrhagic fever, which causes muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, diarrhoea and in severe cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.
Seven people have died, Dahn said, since Liberia reported its first cases of haemorrhagic fever last month, raising the previous toll by three.
Ebola can be transmitted to humans from wild animals, and between humans through direct contact with another's blood, faeces or sweat. Sexual contact, or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses, can also lead to infection.
No treatment or vaccine is available, and the World Health Organization said on Wednesday the fatality rate in Guinea so far stands at 65 per cent, with the virus mainly hitting adults aged 15 to 59.
Mali's Health Minister Ousmane Kone meanwhile said three suspected cases of haemorrhagic fever had been detected in the country.
"Samples have been taken and sent abroad for analysis," Kone said.
In Guinea, health authorities have reported 134 suspected Ebola cases since the beginning of the year, most in the southern cities of Gueckedou and Macenta.
