President Koroma Confirms New Ebola Case in Sierra Leone's Quarantine Village

The west African Ebola outbreak has killed some 11,300 people since first emerging in December 2013 in Guinea, with Liberia being the hardest hit nation. President Ernest Bai Koroma reported that another woman has tested positive for Ebola in a village in northern Sierra Leone already under quarantine after the death of a 67-year-old woman a week ago. Koroma said, "The new case, confirmed on Saturday, had been in contact with the woman who died on August 28, 2015, in the village of Sellu Kafta in Kambia district. The incident is a reminder that Ebola is still here so we must continue to adhere to the precautionary measures made by the health authorities. As a government we have (recently) extended the state of public health emergency to deal with such occurrences. The fact that we still have new cases (emerging) means that we need the regulation and we will continue to use it to halt the transmission chain."

The latest death had brought to an abrupt end the optimism fueled by the release of what had been Sierra Leone's last known Ebola patient from hospital in the central city of Makeni in late August, 2015. District health officials in Kambia revealed that the new Ebola patient was the 'niece' of the woman who died in Sellu Kafta.

The village of almost 1,000 people was put under a three-week quarantine lockdown after health officials announced the death of a woman, a food trader, after being sick for up to 10 days without the authorities' knowledge. Health officials also said, "The experimental 'Guinea ring vaccine' that has been administered by a World Health Organization team in the village since Friday, September 4, 2015, was progressing very well."

Source-AFP