Barely a fortnight to
the official declaration of Liberia as an Ebola-free country by the World
Health Organisation, Liberian health officials confirmed a fresh case of the
dreaded Ebola Virus Disease, over the weekend.
Coming more than two weeks after the last known
Ebola case in the country was discharged from the isolation centre on March 5,
experts say the development represents a major setback for the West African
country.
The new case was detected in a 44-year-old
female food seller that health officials said had not been on a monitoring list
for possible exposure and had not travelled outside Liberia. It was gathered
that the patient, from the Caldwell area near Monrovia, first developed
symptoms around March 15, according to Dr. Moses Massaquoi, leader of the
Clinton Health Access Initiative in Liberia and national case manager of the
Ebola response.
In a statement, the Liberian Information
Ministry said it was unclear how the woman had been infected. It noted that
initial suspicion showed that the woman could have had sexual intercourse with
an Ebola survivor. Liberia along with Sierra Leone and Guinea have been
severely hit by the Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 10,000 people
since it began a year ago.
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