Ebola: in Côte d’Ivoire, a new suspected case and nine contact cases the world organization – le monde

The World Health Organization (WHO) indicated, Tuesday, August 17, that in addition to the confirmed case of contamination by the Ebola virus detected in Ivory Coast, one suspected case and nine contact cases have been identified and are being followed up. “Regarding the figures, there are two cases: one that has been confirmed – a young woman – and a suspected case”WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said during a press briefing in Geneva. “There are currently nine identified contact cases”, he added.

The case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever contamination was detected on Saturday in Abidjan in an 18-year-old Guinean who arrived in Côte d’Ivoire on August 11 from the Guinean city of Labé (north), a journey of more than 1,500 km she did by road. The patient is currently undergoing treatment in a hospital in Abidjan.

WHO has ruled “Extremely worrying” that this case occurred in Abidjan, a metropolis of more than 4 million inhabitants, two months after the announcement of the end of the 2021 epidemic in Guinea.

First Ivorian case since 1994

“Regarding the first investigations on the genetic sequence of the Ebola virus which was identified in Abidjan, for the moment we have no indication that this outbreak in Côte d’Ivoire has a link with the Ebola epidemic which has hit Guinea earlier this year ”, remarked Mr. Jasarevic.

“We need to do other laboratory investigations to find out if there is a link with any previous epidemic”, especially the one that hit Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia hard between late 2013 and 2016, he added. The spokesperson, however, clarified that the first results show that“It is probably the Zaire strain of the virus”, namely the subtype of Ebola virus which raged this year in Guinea as well as during the great epidemic in West Africa.

Although Côte d’Ivoire shares borders with Guinea and Liberia, the country had not recorded any confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease since 1994, when a scientist was infected during an epidemic among chimpanzees, according to the WHO. The outbreak in Côte d’Ivoire is the third in Africa this year, after those that took place in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Guinea.