Sierra Leone Quarantines 700 after New Ebola Death
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Health authorities in Sierra Leone said Tuesday they had quarantined almost 700 people as they battled to contain a new outbreak of Ebola which killed a 16-year-old girl.
The teenager died Sunday in a rural suburb of the city of Makeni, in a northern province that had not recorded a single case of the deadly virus in nearly six months, AFP reported.
"Over 680 people in the village of Robureh are now under a 21-day quarantine," Amadu Thullah, a spokesman for the local Ebola response center said.
The center said those locked down included her parents, close relatives and classmates.
"They are classified as high risk although they have not exhibited any signs and symptoms of the disease," added health ministry spokesman Seray Turay.
"The surveillance team of the Ebola response center have intensified their investigations and is working to nip the issue in the bud."
The girl's death came two weeks after a 67-year-old food trader was killed by the tropical fever in the neighboring district of Kambia, but the two outbreaks are not linked.
The National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) said 1,524 people were in quarantine across the two districts.
A spokesman for the local response team said morale was extremely low in affected area of Makeni, the country's largest northern city.
"It is a wake-up call that Ebola is still in the country but we have an overwhelming turnout of our partners (and) the coordination response is fantastic," he added.
On August 24, President Ernest Bai Koroma led a festive ceremony celebrating the discharge of Sierra Leone's last known Ebola patient, from a Makeni hospital.
No new cases had been recorded in more than two weeks, allowing Sierra Leone to join neighboring Liberia in the countdown to being declared Ebola-free.
The city is located in Bombali district, bordering Guinea. The district last reported a case nearly six months ago, official records show.