Liberia confirms third Ebola virus case

By Paul Obi in Abuja 
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Meanwhile, the other two countries reported 20 new lab-confirmed cases last week, the same as the previous week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in its weekly epidemiologic update on the outbreak. Liberian health officials have beefed up surveillance in the area and have quarantined two households, according to earlier reports.

Nigeria won global praise for moving swiftly to contain the virus, as it was initially feared that the disease could turn to an epidemic in a densely populated city like Lagos.

Dr. Dahn pointed out that communities near the borders can help to protect Liberia from the Ebola virus, noting that this new case demonstrates the importance of making sure people, who died of unknown sickness, are tested or swabbed before taking them for burial.

The question must be asked whether, by focusing too much on post-Ebola recovery in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and the billions of dollars this could attract, everyone has taken their eyes off the ball. Now the race is on to identify all those who came into contact with the victim and, just as importantly, to find out where he himself contracted Ebola.

Hundreds of health workers from now mostly defunct Ebola treatment units protested in front of the health ministry in Monrovia on Wednesday to demand hazard payments they said they were owed for agreeing to tackle Ebola. Its government and people had, despite all odds, managed to record zero cases for 42 days, thus achieving a clean bill of health, until yesterday. “We ask all Liberians and all other nationals living in Liberia to continue taking the preventive measures”, Nyensuah stressed.

GoLocalProv has teamed up with FindTheBest to provide this graphic of the Ebola disease. “Patients in some cases, also have neurological symptoms of becoming confused and restless”.

The statement urged Nigerians not to panic on the development in Liberia, as the ministry was reactivating its response mechanism and increasing the level of its alert. Seven weeks after the impoverish African nation was declared free from the fatal virus, a young man died of Ebola on Sunday.

The outbreak was declared over in Liberia on May 9 even as cases have continued to emerge in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea. We also don’t know at this stage the source of infection.

To make matters worse is the region’s rainy season has started.

Ben Neuman, a virologist and Ebola expert at Reading University, said Ebola survivors, who can carry a small bit of the live virus in their bodies for months after recovering, might be responsible for the new cases. In the new case, the teenage boy was treated for malaria, and was only diagnosed with Ebola after his death. In the general vicinity of West Africa, Liberia was considered to be the heart of the epidemic, where the virus killed more than 11,000 people since December 2013.

Since the outbreak began, 27,479 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola have been reported in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.