Liberia announces fresh Ebola death

“It is under control, we buried the corpse safely and our team will beef up work in the surrounding areas”, Mr. Nyenswah said. More people are expected to be identified as potentially at risk.

But Mr. Nyenswah ruled out any possibility of transfer of the virus from those two countries.

The West African outbreak of Ebola is the worst ever recorded and the disease is hanging on stubbornly in Sierra Leone and Guinea, where it was first reported in March past year.

It was a remarkable turnaround for the country which had been hit hardest by the virus, with more than 4,800 people losing their lives.

World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva the United Nations health body had been informed of the case.

If samples taken from the deceased youth test positive for Ebola, he added, the authorities would begin testing all those who recently came into contact with him.

“What we don’t know is the whether or not the epi-link and chain of transmission”. Even so, health officials urge vigilance to prevent a resurgence of the disease, Reuters reported.

Sierra Leone and Guinea had been seeing numbers of new cases drop dramatically but the decline has halted and the countries have been recording around 20 to 27 new cases a week since the beginning of May. Schools, businesses, borders, markets, and most health facilities were closed. The case will test Liberia’s ability to stop an outbreak largely on its own.

Hayman pointed out that this new case did not necessarily mean others would follow, “but it’s a very important issue to make sure all contacts of this person are found and put under surveillance”.

The reopening of schools in Liberia in February was seen as a major step towards returning to normality.

The fatality is a man aged 17, whose corpse was tested positive for Ebola.

“There is no need for panic”.

The case was discovered after a burial team in the county was alerted to the boy’s mysterious death. The village where the boy was from was placed under quarantine and food was airlifted to the site.