The Guinean health authorities have identified and are monitoring 172 daily contact cases of a man who died on August 2 from the Marburg virus.
The virus, transmitted by bats, was discovered in samples taken from this man in the prefecture of Guéckédou (south), in a village located in a forest region near the borders of Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Her symptoms appeared on July 25, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“The teams follow 172 contacts per day looking for possible symptoms.
So far, no further cases of Marburg have been reported.
We are fully committed to strengthening infection prevention and control measures, detecting cases and raising public awareness, ”assured the Minister of Health, Rémy Lamah, during a virtual press conference organized by WHO.
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The organization insisted last week on the importance of monitoring contact cases that are in the "critical" incubation period, the time between infection and the onset of symptoms, which ranges from two to 21 days.
Ebola case detected in Abidjan
“The last two weeks have been a real challenge for Guinea. We are dealing with an outbreak of Marburg virus disease and contact tracing for an Ebola case that is believed to originate from Guinea and is being treated in Côte d'Ivoire. We are dealing with all of this in the context of a resurgence of Covid-19. The number of cases has increased since early June and this wave is the worst we have seen. These multiple epidemics put our health services to the test, ”admitted Rémy Lamah.
A case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever 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 that she did by road.
The WHO, which has identified 49 contact cases, deemed "extremely worrying" that this case was declared in Abidjan, a metropolis of more than four million inhabitants.
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Guinea was one of the countries most affected by the Ebola epidemic which killed thousands of people in West Africa between the end of 2013 and 2016. In 2021, it experienced a resurgence of this disease which has killed 12 people and was declared complete in June. Each time, the disease left Forest Guinea where the Marburg virus was also detected. There are no treatments or vaccines to fight this virus.