Liberia reports new Ebola infections - Cumulative cases 6 including 2 deaths

[alert]

http://www.liberianobserver.com/news/ebola-resurfaces

Ebola Resurfaces

Tue, 06/30/2015 - 01:51 admin
By:
Alaskai Moore Johnson, Observer Health Correspondent


Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services and head of the Incident Management System (IMS), Mr. Tolbert G. Nyenswah, last night told the Daily Observer that there is a ?very likely confirmed case? of the deadly Ebola virus disease in Liberia.
He told our Health Correspondent that a 17-year-old male, who passed away on Saturday, June 27 and was safely buried by the Ebola burial team, had presented symptoms of the virus.
He stated that two tests conducted so far had proven the existence of the virus but that a third test was waiting to be done in order to corroborate and validate the results of the first two tests.
Asked about any history of the 17 year-old, he stated: ?This report is preliminary. We have just begun to act two hours ago. We are investigating what may have happened after so long since the country was declared free of Ebola transmission.?
He assured the public that there was no cause to worry as the nation?s response team has been swift to react to the news.
?Right now as I speak to you, a team of Epidemiologists from the Ministry of Health (MOH), Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) are now on the ground in Nedowein Town asking questions.?

[snip]

[alert]

It's tough to imagine how this occurred. It could certainly be an imported case from either Sierra Leone or Guinea, but I think we'd know that by now (and they would be glad to report that if it were true). Could the man have had animal contact? That seems incredibly unlikely, given that we know of no one (EVER) that contracted Ebola from an animal in Liberia; the previous outbreak having been started by imported human cases.

Could he have had contact with the semen of a recovered Ebola patient? Given his age and gender, that too seems unlikely. Could there have been a previously undiscovered chain of cases linking him to the earlier outbreak? The problem there is that not counting the last case in Liberia (which was infected by her recovered partner), it has been about four months since the last active case.

Could he have been infected and recovered from Ebola earlier, and now simply died of something else, and the previous infection might be causing incorrect test results?

It will be interesting to see what the investigation turns up.

[Gert van der Hoek]

Tue Jun 30, 2015 1:30pm IST

Liberia announces fresh Ebola death

A Liberian has died of Ebola in the first recorded case since the country at the heart of an epidemic was declared free of the virus on May 9, Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said on Tuesday.

"A 17-year-old corpse was tested positive for Ebola virus. This took place in Margibi County. There is no need to panic. The corpse has been buried and our contact tracing has started work," said Nyenswah.

[Gert van der Hoek]

EBOLA BACK IN LIBERIA: 1 MONTH, 20 DAYS AFTER 'FREE' DECLARATION



Published: 29 June 2015


Monrovia - Liberia is reporting a new case of the deadly Ebola virus just one month and 20 days after the World Health Organization declared the country free of the virus transmission. Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah, Deputy Minister - designate for Disease, Surveillance and Epidemic Control confirmed to FrontPageAfrica Monday evening that the case was discovered after the death of the victim.

Mr. Nyenswah who heads Liberia Incidence Management Team during the Ebola outbreak confirmed that the reported case of the deadly Ebola virus was only detected from specimen taken from the corpse of a dead body. Nyenswah confirmed that specimen from a 17-year old corpse from the village of Nedowian in Margibi County taken before burial tested positive twice and the county surveillance team has increased work in the affected area.

?Specimen from the remains of a 17 year old corpse tested positive on two occasions after our burial team moved into the village and safely took the specimen before safe burial of the corpse?, said Nyenswah.

System working

Mr. Nyenswah was optimistic that the case may be isolated. ?We did the test twice and it all came positive but there is no need to panic quickly detecting means our system is working?. Critics have been piling pressure on the government lately over the reopening of the border between Liberia?s next door neighbors Sierra Leone and Guinea, still recording deaths from the deadly virus. But Mr. Nyenswah ruled out any possibility of transfer of the virus from those two countries.

How the latest case surfaced remains a mystery as Liberia has not reported any new case of the virus for nearly two months while the two countries are still reporting increase in cases. Nyenswah disclosed that from preliminary investigation the deceased felt ill on June 21 and died on the 24 at home in the remote village.

"We have listed 27 contacts and more to come. It is under control, we buried the corpse safely and our team will beef up work in the surrounding areas?, Mr. Nyenswah said. According to him, food, medicines and other items will be airlifted to the affected village to keep the residents under quarantine. Meanwhile, FPA has also gathered that a suspected case from C.H. Rennie in Kakata, Margibi County has been transferred to Gbarnga, Bong County. A test is expected to be performed on that case and the result will likely be known on Tuesday.

More:

[sharon sanders]

Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape 52s52 seconds ago
@flutrackers @helenbranswell @who Just got off the phone with WHO and they would only confirm the case and that a team is investigating.

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hat tip Helen Branswell


The body of a dead Liberian man has tested positive for Ebola - the country's first reported case since it was declared free of the disease.

June 29, 2015 Deputy health minister Tolbert Nyenswah said tests confirmed that the 17-year-old man, from a town near the main airport, had died of the disease.

Officials are investigating how he contracted Ebola, Mr Nyenswah said.

Liberia was declared free of Ebola six weeks ago, following the deadliest outbreak in the disease's history.

More than 11,000 people have died of the disease since December 2013, the vast majority of them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The countries had largely curbed the spread of the disease - but the number of new cases has risen recently, with the start of the rainy season in West Africa.

http://www.mohsw.gov.lr/content_display.php?press_id=263&sub=press_release

[Pathfinder]

1 dead after Ebola reappears in Liberia

By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent
Updated 11:26 AM ET, Tue June 30, 2015

...
Now authorities are trying to determine how many people the 17-year-old boy in Nidonwin had contact with during the week he was sick and potentially infectious with Ebola. His mother, father and siblings are already under quarantine in their home, said Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads up Liberia's Ebola response.
...
The young man, who lived near the Liberian airport, started showing signs of Ebola on June 21, Nyenswah said. At some point between June 21 and his death on June 28, he went to a clinic and was diagnosed with malaria.

The clinic was likely not immediately suspicious of Ebola because the disease has not been circulating in the country for more than seven weeks, and the symptoms of Ebola can be very similar to other diseases, said Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization.

The teenager's parents called the national Ebola hotline the day their son died, and a "safe burial team," whose members wear full protective gear and are trained to handle bodies infected with Ebola, buried him that day, Nyenswah said.
...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/30/health...-case-liberia/

[sharon sanders]

Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape 4m4 minutes ago
Liberian #Ebola case was apparently missed because he was co-infected with malaria. cc @HelenBranswell @FluTrackers http://news.sciencemag.org/africa/2015/06/liberias-puzzle-how-did-new-ebola-patient-become-infected…

[Pathfinder]

New Cases of Ebola Put an End to Liberia?s Status as Virus-Free

By CLAIR MacDOUGALLJUNE 30, 2015

...
It occurred in a small town just outside Monrovia. The family of Abraham Memaigar, 17, who died over the weekend, called a burial team that took swabs of the body and sent them to a laboratory. It confirmed that the boy had been infected by the virus.
...
Late Tuesday, a person connected to Abraham tested positive for Ebola, and tests of two other people were inconclusive, Dr. Massaquoi said.

Thirty-three people who had contact with the teenager were isolated in their homes and were being monitored, he said. Three people will be sent to a treatment unit here Wednesday, he said.
...
Abraham, who sold used clothes at a local market, fell ill at his mother?s house a week before his death, experiencing fever, diarrhea and vomiting.

Abraham?s father, James S. Memaigar, 49, a shoe salesman, said a local clinic had told him just three days before his son?s death that Abraham had malaria. The clinic had sent him home with a handful of tablets, Mr. Memaigar said.

Abraham died Sunday in his father?s home in a community known as Smell No Taste, a few miles from his mother?s home and a short distance from Liberia?s international airport and the Firestone rubber plantation.
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/world/africa/liberia-ebola-epidemic.html?_r=0

[alert]

The confirmed case and several suspected cases are reported to have eaten a dog that died of unknown cause:

http://frontpageafricaonline.com/index.php/health-sci/5667-ebola-mystery-dog-meat-story-eclipses-border-lapse-theory

If this is a re-emergence from animals, it should be pretty easy to determine this based on sequencing the virus.

[Gert van der Hoek]

Wed Jul 1, 2015 12:02pm BST

Liberia registers second confirmed Ebola case: health official

MONROVIA


Liberia confirmed a second case of Ebola on Tuesday just a day after authorities said they had detected a new case of the deadly virus previously thought to have been eliminated from the West African country, a senior health official said.

[Gert van der Hoek]

From NYT:

JUNE 30, 2015

Late Tuesday, a person connected to Abraham tested positive for Ebola, and tests of two other people were inconclusive, Dr. Massaquoi said.

Thirty-three people who had contact with the teenager were isolated in their homes and were being monitored, he said. Three people will be sent to a treatment unit here Wednesday, he said.

More:

[Gert van der Hoek]

Via Twitter, AFP-reporter Frankie Taggart:

Frankie Taggart @frankietaggart 17m17 minutes ago

BREAKING: Liberia has announced two more Ebola cases. Both had contact with the 17-year-old who died last week, say officials. @AFP



Liberia announces two more confirmed Ebola cases

Monrovia (AFP) - Liberia said Wednesday a teenager who died of Ebola fever had spread the virus to at least two more people, confirming the first outbreak of the tropical disease for months.

"Two more people have been confirmed positive. These people had contact with the boy. We are still waiting for more results of blood tests," said health official Cestus Tarpeh.

Tarpeh, a spokesman for the health department in Margibi County, where the 17-year-old got sick, told AFP a herbalist who had treated him had evaded the authorities and was on the run.
More, Yahoo

[Pathfinder]

Health | Thu Jul 2, 2015 10:02am EDT Related: HEALTH

Liberia investigating animal link after Ebola re-emerges

MONROVIA | BY ALPHONSO TOWEH AND JAMES HARDING GIAHYUE
...
"We have, as of yesterday, three confirmed cases," Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said on Thursday. "One expired, who was the 17-year-old boy ... The two live cases are 24 years old and 27 years old. They are stable."

None of the new victims are known to have traveled to Guinea or Sierra Leone, and Nedowein is far from the borders, leading to speculation that there could be hidden pockets of the virus or new means of transmission.
...
Some locals said Memaigar and others in the village had recently dug up and eaten a dead dog.

In past outbreaks, humans have been infected by eating monkey flesh, and a number of West African nations have banned the consumption of bush meat as a precaution.

Another possibility is that the virus survived among humans in remote areas. Ebola's symptoms are often muddled with other tropical diseases. A local clinic misdiagnosed Memaigar with malaria and gave him antibiotics and rehydration salts.
...
Sexual transmission is another possible explanation. The virus can persist in semen for up to 90 days, versus 21 days in other fluids like blood or vomit.
...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/02/us-health-ebola-liberia-idUSKCN0PC0WJ20150702

[Gert van der Hoek]

Liberia confirms third Ebola case

02 07 2015

(.....)


The two new patients, aged 24 and 27, have been admitted to a treatment centre near Monrovia the capital, Liberia's Ebola response chief Tolbert Nyenswah said.

The two men were "very stable" and walked to the ambulance that evacuated them from Nedowein, where Ebola was found on the teen's corpse about seven weeks after Liberia was declared Ebola-free.

About a dozen health workers who had contact with the teenager are under self-observation at a medical centre, and there were no other probable or suspected cases, said Mr Nyenswah.

Authorities have traced about 175 people who'd had contact with the teen who died, said Mr Nyenswah, Liberia's deputy health minister.

[Pathfinder]

World | Tue Jul 7, 2015 11:06pm BST Related: WORLD

Initial Ebola test on Liberia dog carcass negative - sources

DAKAR | BY EMMA FARGE

A dead dog suspected of being the possible source for the re-emergence of Ebola in Liberia has tested negative for the disease, two health officials citing initial findings said on Tuesday as two new cases were confirmed in the country.

Residents said Liberia's first victim of the virus since the country was declared Ebola-free in early May had shared a dog meat meal with neighbours shortly before he died on June 28.

Researchers have since retrieved the carcass of the dog from the village of Nedowein in Margibi County and tested it for Ebola, the sources said.

"I learned today the result was negative, but we have to be careful because the remains are in bad condition and the test is designed for humans," said a health official in Liberia who asked for anonymity since research is ongoing.
...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/07/07/uk-health-ebola-liberia-idUKKCN0PH2B920150707