Guinea authorities have officially announced that the country is facing an Ebola epidemic, after seven new cases of the virus were discovered in recent days and three local citizens died as a result of the infection.
All seven patients attended the funeral of a medical nurse who died as a result of Ebola infection, and soon after began suffering from diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding that led to the deaths of three of them.
A statement from Guinea’s health ministry said all those infected had been hospitalized in solitary confinement in medical centers, but in light of fears that there were more infected in the country it was decided to officially declare a new outbreak of the Ebola epidemic.
“In dealing with this situation and in accordance with international health regulations, the Guinean government is declaring an outbreak of the Ebola epidemic,” the ministry said in a statement.
The head of the National Health Security Agency in Guinea, Sakuba Keita, announced that “some people who attended this funeral began to suffer from diarrhea, vomiting, bleeding and fever several days later.”
The concern in Guinea is that the country will now also have to deal with the rapid and widespread spread of the Ebola virus, in addition to the corona plague. In Guinea, nearly 15,000 people have been infected with corona to date, with 84 people dying from the virus.
The Ebola epidemic that broke out between 2013-2016 in Africa, claimed the lives of 11,315 people out of 28,616 people infected with the virus, with the mortality rate considered very high and standing at 39 percent.
A representative of the World Health Organization in Guinea said the organization would send immediate aid to the country, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the epidemic in Guinea itself and to other countries in Africa and the world.
Also in Liberia, which shares a border with Guinea, President George W. Bush has instructed health authorities to go on high alert, fearing that Liberian citizens have also been infected with the virus.