Contrary to earlier reports that the Ebola outbreak earlier this year is now under control, at least five people have died in Sierra Leone’s first confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The hemorrhagic fever virus with a reported fatality rate of up to 90 percent, has killed more than 100 people in neighbouring Guinea and Liberia since March, in the first deadly appearance of the disease in West Africa.
In a statement posted on its website, the WHO said the outbreak in Sierra Leone was in an area along the country’s border with Guinea’s Guéckédou prefecture, where some of the earliest cases of the disease were recorded.
“Preliminary information received from the field indicates that one laboratory-confirmed case and five community deaths have been reported from Koindu chiefdom,” it said. The WHO said it was immediately deploying six experts to the area along with essential supplies.
Several suspected cases of Ebola had been reported in Sierra Leone earlier in the West African outbreak, but those patients later tested negative for the disease.
Ebola has been more commonly found in Central Africa — including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon — and in Uganda and South Sudan.
There is no vaccine and no known cure for Ebola, which initially induces fever, headaches, muscle pain and weakness. In its more acute phase, Ebola causes vomiting, diarrhoea and external bleeding, symptoms that facilitate the rapid spread of the virus. Human-to-human contact, directly or via exposure to such secretions, are most often behind the transmission of the virus.
