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Day After Ebola Outbreak Is Declared Over, Sierra Leone Reports a Death Day After a Victory Over Ebola, Sierra Leone Reports a Death
(about 13 hours later)
DAKAR, Senegal — Just one day after the World Health Organization declared the end to the biggest outbreak of Ebola, a body in Sierra Leone had tested positive for the virus, officials said on Friday. DAKAR, Senegal — The World Health Organization confirmed Friday that a body in Sierra Leone had tested positive for the Ebola virus on Thursday, the day the organization announced that all known chains of transmission of Ebola in West Africa had been stopped.
Francis Langoba Kellie, a spokesman for the Office of National Security in Sierra Leone, identified the victim as a 22-year-old woman from the northern part of the country, The Associated Press reported, adding that certain areas would be quarantined in response to the woman’s death. The victim was a 22-year-old student from the Port Loko district, said Tunis Yahya, an official with Sierra Leone’s Health Ministry. The woman died on Jan. 12 and was found to have Ebola during routine swab testing for the virus.
The organization has warned that small flare-ups of the disease are likely because the virus can persist in the bodily fluids of survivors. Officials estimate that the virus can be present in semen for up to a year after survivors have recovered from the disease and show no symptoms. Officials said there was no information yet on how the woman became infected. An investigation is underway. The W.H.O. has repeatedly warned that small flare-ups of the disease are likely because the virus can persist in the bodily fluids of some survivors for a variable length of time and in rare cases be transmitted to close contacts.
Ten flare-ups have been reported in the past nine months in the three countries that were hardest hit by the outbreak: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. At least 10 flare-ups have been reported in the past nine months in the three countries that were hardest hit by the outbreak: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. “The new flares, they’re the embers basically of this crisis,” said Dr. Bruce Aylward, the health organization’s representative for the Ebola response.
The risk of transmission from survivors is low but significant, officials have said, noting that the risk decreases as victims’ immune systems clear out the virus. The Ebola outbreak that started two years ago killed more than 11,300 people and infected more than 28,500. The risk of transmission by survivors is expected to decrease as their immune systems clear out the virus. Officials said that it was unlikely that Ebola had been spreading from person to person in a hidden outbreak leading back to the country’s last known case in September.
A preliminary investigation showed that the woman had spent time in two other districts after becoming ill, and had sought treatment in at least one hospital, but was sent home. Special precautions were not taken at her burial. Consequently, more than a dozen people had significant contact with the woman and were considered at high risk of contracting Ebola, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is assisting in the response to the case.
Dr. Frieden said that while it was unfortunate that the woman’s illness was not diagnosed immediately after she became sick, it would be difficult to detect a single, sporadic case of Ebola because there are an estimated two million incidences of fever a month in the three countries.
Few blood tests for Ebola were being performed on living patients in Sierra Leone in recent weeks, according to the World Health Organization.
Rapid tests, which require only a small amount of blood, can deliver results in minutes, but have not yet been widely used, Dr. Aylward said, because false positives could cause confusion.