Three New Cases of Ebola Reported in Sierra Leone

Authorities in Sierra Leone reported Tuesday that three more patients have tested positive for Ebola in a village in the northern region of the country that is already under quarantine in the wake of the death of a 67-year-old woman.

According to the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), the new cases, which were diagnosed on Monday, bring the total in a recent outbreak in Sella Kafta in the district of Kambia to five. Speaking to reporters in the capital Freetown, NERC spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis disclosed that the three new cases were amongst the fifty “high risk persons” who have been identified as being close relatives of the food trader, who died on 28 August. He further disclosed that “the development remains a concern for us but since it has taken place within a quarantined home, it can be adequately monitored and further transmission can be contained.”

The latest outbreak brought to an abrupt end the optimism that was fuelled by the release of what had been the West African country’s last known Ebola patient from a hospital in the central city of Makeni in late August. In the wake of the latest Ebola death, Sella Kafta, a village of almost 1,000 people, was placed under a three-week quarantine lockdown.