Cape Town – Health authorities in Ivory Coast say that the patient who tested positive for the country’s first Ebola case in 25 years has made a full recovery, according to reports on Friday.
The country reported its first case of the viral haemorrhagic fever on August 12 after initial investigations found that the patient had travelled to Ivory Coast from Guinea by land and arrived in Abidjan on August 12.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that there is no indication that the case is linked to the earlier outbreak in Guinea.
The West African country declared an Ebola outbreak in one of its regions on February 14 when seven people fell ill with diarrhoea, vomiting and bleeding after attending a burial in Goueke, near the Liberian border.
On Monday, August 23, Ebola booster dose vaccinations kicked off in neighbouring Sierra Leone following administration of the prime dose of the Johnson & Johnson Ebola vaccine in May this year.
Guineans and Sierra Leoneans have close social and economic ties and the two countries share land borders with several informal crossing points including along the area in Guinea where the February 2021 outbreak occurred.
An Ebola outbreak in 2014 and 2016 killed more than 11 000 people.
“With the recent resurgence of the Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea and in Côte d'Ivoire, there is a high risk of outbreaks in Sierra Leone and other neighbouring countries because of the movement of people across borders and other ecological factors.
“Sustained preventive interventions therefore remain critically important,” the World Health Organisation Representative in Sierra Leone, Dr Steven Shongwe, said.
Ebola is a severe, often fatal illness affecting humans and other primates. Case fatality rates have varied from 25 percent to 90 in past outbreaks. There is now effective treatment available and if patients receive treatment early, as well as supportive care, their chances of survival improve significantly.
African News Agency (ANA)