Conakry (AFP)

Guinean authorities on Thursday asked Côte d'Ivoire to carry out a new analysis of the young Guinean in whom the Ebola virus was detected in Abidjan, citing "questions" about the initial diagnosis.

A case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever was detected on Saturday in Abidjan in an 18-year-old Guinean who arrived in Côte d'Ivoire on August 11 from the Guinean city of Labé (north), a journey of more than 1,500 km that she did by road.

"The improvement of the symptoms of the disease and the improvement of the clinical picture in 48 hours raise questions, knowing the classic evolution of the disease", wrote the Guinean Minister of Health, Rémy Lamah, in an official letter consulted by AFP.

The minister also underlined, in this letter addressed to the World Health Organization (WHO), that the Guinean medical team sent to Abidjan had not been able to have access to the patient.

The city of Labé, where the young Guinean is from, "did not record any cases of Ebola virus disease during the national episodes of 2014-2016 and 2021," said Rémy Lamah.

"Considering all of the above, Guinea is requesting from the Ivorian authorities through the WHO a reconfirmation of this case through the Pasteur Institute in Dakar and if possible another accredited laboratory," added the Minister.

The director of the National Health Security Agency of Guinea, Sakoba Keïta, considered the case detected in Abidjan to be "unusual and atypical", noting that no case had been detected in the girl's family in Guinea, with the driver who transported it, or with other passengers, more than ten days after its departure.

"There have already been cases where we have seen laboratory errors," he told AFP, referring to the "need for further investigation".

During her trip, the young girl notably crossed Forest Guinea, where the 2021 epidemic was triggered, but also the one that hit West Africa between the end of 2013 and 2016.

The case was detected less than two months after Guinea - one of the poorest countries in the world - declared the end of an Ebola epidemic that erupted earlier this year, killing 12 people.

Ebola and Marburg disease detected in West Africa AFP

Guinea has already been severely affected by hemorrhagic fever caused by the Ebola virus, which had killed 2,500 people there between the end of 2013 and 2016 and which had killed more than 11,300, including among its neighbors Liberian and Sierra Leonean, two others of the among the poorest countries in the world.

An undervalued balance sheet by the admission of the World Health Organization (WHO).

© 2021 AFP