Conakry (AFP)

West Africa is again facing an epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, with seven cases, including three fatalities, recorded on Sunday in south-eastern Guinea, where the worst epidemic in the country had already started. history of the virus (2013-2016).

While the planet is far from having finished with the Covid-19 pandemic, Conakry and the WHO nevertheless feel better equipped than five years ago, thanks in particular to the progress of vaccination, to cope with this viral disease that first appeared in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where it is still rife.

In Liberia, a country neighboring Guinea, where no case has been reported, President George Weah immediately ordered the strengthening of vigilance and sensitization of the populations, in particular along the border.

The new cases - seven, including three fatalities - have emerged in the Guinea Forest region, near Liberia.

Tests carried out in Conakry confirmed on Sunday that it was indeed Ebola.

"This puts Guinea in an Ebola epidemic situation," the head of the Guinean health agency (ANSS), Dr Sakoba Keïta, announced on Sunday after an emergency meeting.

- Funeral rites -

According to him, a nurse died at the end of January in Gouecké, near the regional capital Nzérékoré, and "several people who took part in her funeral began a few days later to have symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, bleeding and fever".

It is also from this region, located more than 800 km from Conakry by road, that the worst epidemic in the history of the virus started, which had killed more than 11,300 between 2013 and 2016, mainly in Guinea, in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea itself had been severely tested, with over 2,500 dead.

The new patients were isolated and care centers "reactivated" in Nzérékoré and Conakry.

An "investigative mission" will "delimit the incriminated area and determine the villages of all the people who took part in the burial ceremony of this first victim in order to identify the contacts and isolate them", explained the boss of the ANSS.

It will also be necessary to determine the origin of this resurgence, which could come from a "formerly cured patient whose disease woke up" or from a transmission by "wild animals, in particular bats", underlined the Dr Keïta.

"The situation compared to 2014 is very different, since at the time, it took 3.5 months for the diagnosis, while this time it took less than two weeks", he noted. .

- "Fatal weapon" -

"Not to mention that the vaccine also exists and is at hand in Geneva", the headquarters of the WHO.

"We are going to use our lethal weapon which is vaccination," he said.

The WHO will deploy resources "quickly" and ensure that the necessary doses of vaccines are "made available as quickly as possible to help this response," said its representative in Conakry, Professor Alfred George Ki-Zerbo .

The toll of the previous epidemic in West Africa, although undervalued by the WHO's own admission, is seven times higher in number of deaths than that of all previous Ebola epidemics since its appearance. 1976.

The second most serious Ebola epidemic, the tenth recorded in the DRC, was declared in August 2018 in the east of the country.

It officially ended in June 2020, with a toll of 3,481 cases and 2,299 deaths, according to the WHO.

Kinshasa announced at the beginning of February a new "resurgence", which left at least two victims.

A poor country despite significant natural resources, Guinea remains in the grip of deep divisions caused by the election for a controversial third term last October of its president Alpha Condé and by arrests of opponents.

The country, with limited health capacity like many others in the region, has also officially recorded some 15,000 cases of Covid-19, for 84 deaths.

© 2021 AFP