The Guinean authorities announced on Wednesday August 18 that they had identified 58 contact cases of the young Guinean in whom the Ebola virus was detected in the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan, who are confined to their homes for lack of space in an isolation center.
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A case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever was detected on Saturday in Abidjan in an 18-year-old Guinean girl, 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 considered "
extremely worrying
" that this case was declared in Abidjan, a metropolis of more than four million inhabitants, two months after the announcement of the end of the epidemic of 2021 in Guinea.
“
In Labé, 58 contacts were identified.
The good news is they haven't shown any signs yet.
They are well followed
", explained to AFP Elhadj Mamadou Houdy Bah, regional director of health of Labé.
The driver of the vehicle that transported the young Guinean, returning from Abidjan, is one of these contact cases, he said.
One suspected case and nine contact cases also identified
The only possible center for the care of these contact cases in Labé being saturated with patients suffering from the coronavirus, the contact cases were placed in home confinement, for an observation period of 21 days, said the Guinean health authorities. .
During her trip, the young girl notably crossed Forest Guinea, where the 2021 epidemic was triggered, but also the one that hit West Africa between the end of 2013 and 2016 and which killed more than 11,300 people, mainly in Guinea (2,500 dead), Liberia and Sierra Leone, three of the poorest countries in the world.
An undervalued balance sheet by the admission of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Read also Ivory Coast: start of vaccinations against Ebola
WHO said Tuesday that in addition to the young Guinean, one suspected case and nine contact cases had been identified and were being followed in Côte d'Ivoire. The patient is currently undergoing treatment in a hospital in Abidjan, while an operation to vaccinate health sector workers against the Ebola virus began on Monday. Residents of a district of the Ivorian economic capital, where the young Guinean stayed, were vaccinated Tuesday.