The young Guinean diagnosed positive for the Ebola virus in Côte d'Ivoire, where she arrived on August 11 from Guinea, is "
cured
" of her disease, the Ivorian health ministry said on Tuesday.
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“
We performed two biological tests on the patient, which were negative within 48 hours of intervals.
She is therefore declared cured,
”Serge Eholié, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and head of the infectious and tropical diseases department of the Treichville University Hospital in Abidjan, who received the patient, told AFP.
"
We lift its isolation today (Tuesday). It is no longer a risk of contamination.
She is still very tired, we are keeping her in hospital
”continued Professor Eholié.
No new known case
"
From today (Tuesday) we count 42 days to be able to say at the end if Côte d'Ivoire is free from Ebola
" he stressed, without reporting any new cases.
The Ivorian health authorities detected on August 14, a case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in an 18-year-old Guinean girl, who arrived in Côte d'Ivoire on August 11 from the Guinean city of Labé (north), one more journey 1,500 km that she did by road.
This discovery was the first confirmed case in Côte d'Ivoire since 1994, in this neighboring country of Guinea hard hit from 2013 to 2016 and where the virus reappeared in 2021.
Forty-nine cases of people who have been in contact with the young Guinean have been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO).
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The country, which received 5,000 doses of Ebola vaccines, started a vaccination campaign on August 17 for target groups, healthcare workers who were in immediate contact with the patient and the security forces deployed on the border with Guinea.
Côte d'Ivoire is the third country on the African continent this year to have been affected by the Ebola virus after the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea.
Ebola is an often fatal viral disease that affects humans and other primates. "
Case fatality rates have varied from 25 to 90% in previous epidemics,
" according to the WHO. "
Nevertheless, there is now an effective treatment, and if patients are managed at an early stage of the disease, along with supportive care, their chances of survival improve considerably
."