Ebola outbreak in West African country; What happens next?

Guinea has reported at least 3 people dead and another 4 ill.

The patients suffered diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding after attending a burial Goueke sub-prefecture. This is the first resurgence of the deadly disease after the world's worst outbreak back in 2013 - 2016.

Those still alive have been isolated in treatment centres, the health ministry said.

It is still not clear if the person buried on February died of Ebola. She was a nurse at a local health centre who died from an unspecified illness after being transferred for treatment to Nzerekore.

"Faced with this situation and in accordance with international health regulations, the Guinean Government declares an Ebola epidemic," the ministry stated.

The 2013 - 2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa started in Nzerekore. The disease went on to kill at least 11,300 people, with the majority of cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Fighting Ebola again will cause additional strain on Guinea's health services, which are already battling the coronavirus pandemic. Guinea has so far recorded 14,895 coronavirus infections and 84 deaths, with a population of around 12 million.

The Ebola virus causes severe vomiting and diarrhea, it is spread through contact of body fluids. It has a much higher death rate than the coronavirus but is not transmitted by asymptomatic carriers.

Health workers are working to trace and isolate the contacts of the Ebola cases and will open a treatment centre in Goueke, less than an hour’s drive from Nzerekore.

Authorities have also asked the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Ebola vaccines, which have greatly improved survival rates in recent years.

"WHO is ramping up readiness and response efforts to this potential resurgence of Ebola in West Africa, a region which suffered so much from Ebola in 2014," the WHO's regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said on Twitter.

The improved treatment and vaccines helped to end the second-largest Ebola outbreak, which was declared over in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last June after nearly two years and more than 2,200 deaths.

This Sunday, DRC reported a fourth new case of Ebola in the North Kivu province - where a resurgence of the virus was announced earlier this month.