Liberia on Wednesday confirmed a second new case of Ebola and warned of possible new infections, as the re-emergence of the virus nearly two months after its elimination in the West African country raised fears of hidden pockets of the disease.
More than 11,200 people have died since last year in the worst Ebola outbreak on record, nearly all of them in the three neighboring countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Liberia, where 4,800 people perished, had been viewed as a rare success story, after being declared Ebola-free on May 9.
Photo: EPA
However, the confirmation of an Ebola case in a rural area of Margibi County, about 50km from the capital, Monrovia, raised fears of a resurgence of the disease.
The WHO said Liberian authorities were monitoring more than 100 people thought to have come into contact with Abraham Memaigar, who died on Sunday.
The 17-year-old, initially misdiagnosed with malaria, was buried the same day, but tests on his body later confirmed his infection.
A neighbor later tested positive as well.
“We have two confirmed cases today in Liberia,” Moses Massaquoi, case management team leader for Liberia’s Ebola task force, said on Wednesday.
Liberian officials and the WHO said the teenager was not believed to have traveled to Sierra Leone or Guinea.
Margibi County is far from the epidemic’s remaining hotspots.
Some residents of Memaigar’s village said that those showing symptoms of Ebola had recently eaten a dog, a practice common in Liberia. In past outbreaks, humans have been infected by eating monkey flesh.
“This might mean that there is a reservoir of Ebola in animals that we have not been paying attention to,” said Philip Ireland, a doctor at John F. Kennedy medical center in Monrovia and an Ebola survivor.
“It could pop up anywhere,” he said.
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