After almost five years, West Africa faced its first known resurgence of the Ebola virus as Guinea’s health chief called it an “epidemic” after seven cases were confirmed in the nation. At least three people have died in Guinea in recent weeks from Ebola, as four more are infected. Guinea health chief Sakoba Keita said, “Very early this morning, the Conakry laboratory confirmed the presence of the Ebola virus,” after an emergency meeting, reported news agency AFP.

The Guinea health minister said that the officials are planning to isolate all suspected cases, as they have started contact tracing and are working on getting doses of the Ebola vaccine from the WHO. 

Guinea and the World Health Organization (WHO) have said that they are better prepared to deal with the Ebola outbreak, which came amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, than five years due to good progress on vaccines. 

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The fresh infections have been reported five years after Guinea declared itself free of Ebola, which stayed in West Africa since a 2013-2016 epidemic and killed more than 11,300 people that is the worst involving the virus on record. 

The virus cases have been recorded in the same southeastern region where it had previously emerged. 

Guinea’s head of the National Agency for Health Security, Keita, said one person had died in late January in Gouécké, southeastern Guinea, near the Liberian border, reports AFP. He said the victim was buried on February 1 and some people started to have symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting, bleeding and fever a few days after they attended the person’s funeral.

The Ebola virus is believed to reside in bats and was first identified in 1976 in Zaire, which is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Liberia, Guinea’s neighbour, has been put under heightened alert on Sunday, ordered by President George Weah; no cases of Ebola had been detected in the nation so far. Similarly, Guinea’s neighbour Sierra has followed a similar suit, despite reporting zero cases. 

DR Congo, which has faced several outbreaks of the virus, announced a resurgence of Ebola a week ago, three months after the nation declared the end of its previous episode. 

The 2013-2016 West Africa outbreak sped up the development of a vaccine against Ebola, with a global emergency stockpile of 500,000 doses planned to respond quickly to future outbreaks, the vaccine alliance Gavi said in January, reports AFP.