What if the Ebola hemorrhagic fever case in Côte d’Ivoire wasn’t? Guinea on Thursday asked the health authorities of the Ivory Coast to carry out a new analysis of the young Guinean in which the Ebola virus was detected on Saturday in Abidjan. The country has doubts about the initial diagnosis made to the 18-year-old Guinean girl, who arrived in Ivory Coast on August 11 from the Guinean city of Labé (north), a journey of more than 1,500 km that she made by road.
“The improvement of the symptoms of the disease and the improvement of the clinical picture in 48 hours raise questions, knowing the classic evolution of the disease,” wrote the Guinean Minister of Health, Rémy Lamah, in an official letter. The minister also stressed, in this letter addressed to the World Health Organization (WHO), that the Guinean medical team sent to Abidjan had not been able to access the patient.
The city of Labé, where the young Guinean is from, “did not register any case of Ebola virus disease during the national episodes of 2014-2016 and 2021,” said Rémy Lamah. “Taking into account all the above, Guinea is requesting the authorities of Côte d’Ivoire through the WHO to reconfirm this case through the Pasteur Institute in Dakar and if possible another accredited laboratory,” added the Minister.
During her trip, the young woman notably crossed Forest Guinea, where the epidemic of 2021 was unleashed, but also the one that affected West Africa between the end of 2013 and 2016. This case was detected less than two months after Guinea, one of the most poor. countries of the world – declared the end of an Ebola epidemic that broke out earlier this year and killed 12 people.
Guinea has already been severely affected by the hemorrhagic fever caused by the Ebola virus, which killed 2,500 people there between late 2013 and 2016 and killed more than 11,300, including among its neighbors Liberia and Sierra Leone, two others. among the poorest countries in the world. A balance sheet undervalued by the admission of the World Health Organization (WHO).