Sierra
Leone to vaccinate 200 people connected to Ebola victim
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[September 03, 2015]
FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone is
to vaccinate around 200 people who came into direct or indirect contact
with a woman who died of Ebola on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the U.N.
World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.
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The death of the woman, a trader from Kambia District near the
border with Guinea, sets back efforts to end an 18-month epidemic
that has infected more than 28,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone
and Liberia and killed more than a third of them.
The 67-year-old woman died five days after Sierra Leone started a
42-day countdown to being declared free of Ebola. The previous new
case of the disease was reported on Aug 8.
"We will vaccinate those in the (Tonko Limba) chiefdom who came into
direct contact with the deceased and those contacts they also came
into close contact with," said WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris.
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"We have to ensure that everybody is fully informed and consents,"
she said, adding that voluntary vaccinations with a drug that
arrived from Guinea and has proved effective there would start on
Thursday or Friday.
The fresh case is discouraging and a reminder of the difficulty of
battling Ebola, said Pallo Conteh, head of the National Ebola
Response Centre in Sierra Leone, adding that more cases may be
recorded as a result of this victim.
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He appealed to a woman he named as the niece of the victim to come
forward, saying she was at high risk.
The outbreak has ebbed only to flare back up since it was first
declared in March 2014. Liberia was declared Ebola-free in May, but
a fresh cluster of cases appeared nearly two months later. Liberia's
last case was discharged on July 23.
Scientists say sexual transmission is the most likely explanation
for the resurgence in Liberia since the virus can live on in semen
beyond the usual 21-day incubation period.
(Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; /Hugh Lawson)
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