Guinea monitors 816 Ebola contacts

More than 800 people who might have come into contact with Ebola are being monitored in Guinea following a flare-up of the disease.

Guinea has traced an estimated 816 people who might have come into contact with victims of the disease or their corpses during a recent flare-up in a village in the country's southeast.

The country's Ebola co-ordination unit said on Thursday it had discovered new cases of Ebola just hours after the World Health Organisation declared neighbouring Sierra Leone's latest outbreak over.

Four people have died in the flare-up in Porokpara.

"Since the start of the tracing on Saturday, we have traced 816 contacts in 107 families," Fode Tass Sylla, spokesman for the co-ordination unit, said on state television on Monday.

"We are optimistic because everyone is motivated and co-operating."

The villagers will be quarantined in their homes for 21 days after which time, if they have not developed symptoms, they will be released.

The world's worst Ebola outbreak on record is believed to have started in Guinea and killed about 2,500 people there by December 2015 when the WHO announced an end to active transmission in the country.

More than 28,600 people have been infected and 11,300 have died, nearly all of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, since the epidemic began in December 2013.


Share
2 min read

Published

Source: AAP


Share this with family and friends


Get SBS News daily and direct to your Inbox

Sign up now for the latest news from Australia and around the world direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to SBS’s terms of service and privacy policy including receiving email updates from SBS.

Download our apps
SBS News
SBS Audio
SBS On Demand

Listen to our podcasts
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News
Interviews and feature reports from SBS News
Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves.
A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability
Get the latest with our News podcasts on your favourite podcast apps.

Watch on SBS
SBS World News

SBS World News

Take a global view with Australia's most comprehensive world news service
Watch the latest news videos from Australia and across the world
Guinea monitors 816 Ebola contacts | SBS News