By Mouctar Bah
1 hour ago
Conakry (AFP) - Health
officials in Guinea battled to contain west Africa's first outbreak of
the deadly Ebola virus as neighbouring Liberia reported its first
suspected victims and a traveller returning to Canada was hospitalised
with suspicious symptoms.
At least 59
people are known to have died in Guinea's southern forests and there are
six suspected cases in Liberia which, if confirmed, would mark the
first spread of the highly contagious pathogen into another country.
And
there are fears the virus may have crossed continents, with a man
returning to Canada from Liberia seriously ill in hospital after
experiencing symptoms consistent with the virus, health officials said."As of this morning six cases have been reported of which five have already died -- four female adults and one male child. One of the suspected cases, a female child, is under treatment," Liberian Health Minister Walter Gwenigale said in a statement.
"The team is already investigating the situation, tracing contacts, collecting blood samples and sensitising local health authorities on the disease," he added.
Gwenigale did not specify the victims' nationalities, but Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said they were Liberian residents who had attended funerals in the Ebola-hit area of Guinea, which has strong "family ties" with northern Liberia.
"People come to attend funerals on one side and unfortunately they unwittingly get infected and then return home," Brussels-based MSF emergency coordinator Marie-Christine Ferir told AFP.
The local health ministry in Canada's Saskatchewan province said a man had been placed in solitary confinement, with his family in quarantine, pending expected results on Tuesday of tests.
"All we know at this point is that we have a person who is critically ill who travelled from a country where these diseases occur," Denise Werker, joint director of health in Saskatchewan, in western Canada, said.
To date, no treatment or vaccine is available for the Ebola pathogen, which kills between 25 and 90 percent of those who fall sick, depending on the strain of the virus, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Officials from the Guinean health ministry and the WHO met Sunday in Conakry for urgent talks on the crisis.
"The
total suspect cases recorded to date amount to 86 cases with 59
deaths," the health ministry said in a statement, indicating that most
cases reported since the start of the outbreak in early February were in
Guinea's south.
The first
analyses of samples by the Pasteur Institute in the French city of Lyon
showed that cases in southern Guinea were due to the Ebola virus.
Three cases of haemorrhagic fever, two fatal, have also been reported in Conakry, but tests for Ebola proved negative.
Transmission
to humans can come from wild animals, or from direct contact from
another human's blood, faeces or sweat, or by sexual contact and the
unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.
- 'Molecular shark' -
The
tropical virus -- described in some health publications as a "molecular
shark" -- can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and
muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea -- in some cases shutting
down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.
It
was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1976.
The central African country has suffered eight outbreaks.
The
most recent epidemic, also in the DRC, infected 62 people and left 34
dead between May and November 2012, according to the country's health
ministry.
Although there have
also been outbreaks among humans in Uganda, the Republic of Congo and
Gabon, the disease had never before been detected in people in west
Africa.
The aid organisation
Plan International warned that the epidemic risked spreading to
neighbouring countries because of the free movement of people across
borders.
Sierra Leonean aid organisation the Health For All Coalition warned of a high risk of transmission in border areas.
"People,
goods and animals -- such as sheep, goats and cows used in Sierra Leone
-- come from Guinea and it is these districts that they are brought
into. And in these areas, people hunt for birds, monkeys and baboons for
food."
Adjoining Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast have reactivated their epidemiological surveillance systems.
The
head of Ivory Coast's National Public Hygiene Institute, Simplice
Dagnan, said officials were worried the virus could "easily" arrive
there, warning: "Animals don't recognise borders."
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