Probable Ebola case in Sierra Leone reflects ongoing risk

The WHO stressed in its statement declaring the outbreak over on Thursday that the virus could return in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone because it persists in survivors after they have recovered.

Francis Langoba Kellie, a spokesman for Sierra Leone’s Office of National Security, said the woman had come from the country’s Northern Kambia district and had gone to the Northern Tonkolili district for medical care. Her contacts are being traced and certain areas will be quarantined, he said.

Besides safe burials, another key response step in the outbreak region has been to test for Ebola in all people who die as a means of identifying any unknown cases or transmission chains. World Health Organization declared Guinea, where the outbreak began in December 2013, to be free of Ebola last month.

“Our level of preparedness remains high as we did not stand down or dismantle any of the structures that we had used to fight the virus before”. He noted that World Health Organization will continue to support Liberia as it continues to prevent, detect, and respond to new suspected cases.

The WHO has warned that flare-ups of the disease, which can kill up to 90 percent of its victims and is passed by bodily fluids which include semen and breast milk, are expected. This is to note Liberia was the last country in West Africa to be declared Ebola-free.

Healthcare workers prepare to disinfect an ambulance transporting a newly admitted Ebola patient at the entrance to the Save the Children Kerry Town Ebola treatment centre outside Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 22, 2014.

Liberia was declared free of Ebola in May 2015, but the disease resurfaced twice after this and a third one announced in November.

The Sierra Leone death occurred earlier this week.

“We have had ten of these flare-ups and we are anticipating more”, said Rick Brennan, Director of WHO’s Department of Emergency Risk Management and Humanitarian Response.

The report stated that five people who were not part of Jalloh’s parents’ household were involved in washing her corpse, a practice that is considered one of the chief modes of Ebola transmission.

The virus and residual symptoms have mysteriously remained in some survivors even after they have been released from the hospital.