Credit CDC PHIL
UPDATED: 10:30 Hrs EST 11/20
My thanks to Crof for posting a link to an announcement by Liberia’s Ministry of Health, indicating there are now 3 confirmed Ebola cases, the original, and two family members. More testing of contacts is underway.
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As I blogged earlier this morning, roughly 4 months after Liberia’s last positive Ebola test, a new case has emerged near the capital city of Monrovia, that of a 10 year-old boy who fell ill about a week ago. This effectively `resets the clock’ for the second time this year, putting Liberia back into the active Ebola category.
Since this boy appears to have had no travel history to areas still seeing Ebola transmission, the assumption is his infection is the result of exposure to a convalescent Ebola case who continues to harbor and shed the virus.
This is a topic we’ve looked at repeatedly over the past year, but most recently in ECDC On Ebola Persistence & Rapid Risk Assessment, which looked at the unexpected relapse of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey, nine months after her recovery from the the virus
In WHO: Study Shows Ebola Virus Fragments May Be Detectable In Semen For > 9 Months, we saw additional evidence of the long-term presence of the Ebolavirus in male semen, and last May (see MMWR & WHO On Risks Of Sexual Transmission Of Ebola) we saw evidence of the sexual transmission of the virus.
All of which makes `getting to zero, and staying there’ a daunting task.
The audio recording of the press briefing held today at 12.30 (Geneva time) by Dr R. Bruce Aylward, Executive Director a.i., Outbreaks and Health Emergencies and Special Representative of the Director-General for the Ebola Response may be accessed at the following link:
