|
 Dr Moses Massaquoi, case management team leader for Liberia's Ebola
task force, said the three villagers who had tested positive for the
disease "have a history of having had dog meat together." Dog meat
is commonly eaten in Liberia.
The first new Liberian sufferer, 17-year-old Abraham Memaigar, died
on Sunday in the village of Nedowein, about 50 km (30 miles) from
the capital Monrovia. Two others have since tested positive in the
village.
Some locals said Memaigar and others in the village had recently dug
up and eaten a dead dog.
It has not been proved that dogs can carry the virus, although
humans have been infected by eating monkey flesh in past outbreaks.
A number of West African nations have banned the consumption of bush
meat as a precaution.
Massaquoi said the response team was investigating whether domestic
animals might be carrying the virus and was also checking on deaths
of hundreds of cattle in remote Lofa county.
Liberia, worst hit by the West African Ebola outbreak last year, had
been declared Ebola free on May 9 even as more cases emerged in
neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea. Liberia accounts for more than
4,800 of the 11,220 deaths in the West African outbreak.
"The two (latest) live cases are 24 years old and 27 years old. They
are stable," Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said on
Thursday.
None of the new victims is known to have traveled to Guinea or
Sierra Leone, and Nedowein is far from the borders, leading to
speculation that there could be hidden pockets of the virus or new
means of transmission.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told Reuters: "There is no need to
panic. Our health team is on top of it. It will be contained."
However, a pay dispute might disrupt health care and workers
protested for a second day on Thursday.
FEARS OF ANIMAL TRANSMISSION
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
said the new Ebola cases pointed to gaps in Liberia's basic
infection control, adding that improvements are needed to prevent
outbreaks in a region where the virus could be endemic.
A U.S. military operation that helped Liberia's government counter
the outbreak has mostly withdrawn. But the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), a U.S. health body, said it was
working with authorities to study the origin of the cases and stop
the virus spreading.
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Residents in Nedowein were baffled.
"An Ebola case being reported in the middle part of Liberia is
confusing," said Adolphus Gbinee, Memaigar's uncle. "We do not have
cases at our borders, not even in Monrovia. How could Ebola jump
over those places and come here in Nedowein?"
Another possibility is that the virus survived among humans in
remote areas. Ebola's symptoms are often muddled with other tropical
diseases, like malaria.
"There may still be clusters of EVD (Ebola) within Liberia that have
been smoldering on without the knowledge of any authorities," Ian
Mackay, a virologist at Australia's University of Queensland, wrote
in his blog.
Sexual transmission is also possible. The virus can persist in semen
for up to 90 days, versus 21 days in blood or vomit.
Nyenswah said health officials were monitoring 175 people believed
to have come into contact with the three cases, though none had yet
exhibited symptoms.
"There is no further spread of the virus to any part of the country
as we speak," he said.
Separately, Democratic Republic of Congo, which has periodic Ebola
flare-ups, is investigating a possible outbreak in a village.
Central Africa has a different strains of the virus.
(Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Dakar and Kate Kelland in
London; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Ruth
Pitchford)
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