Liberia quarantines an area where new Ebola case appeared

Liberian authorities on Tuesday quarantined two households after the corpse of a 17-year-old boy was found with Ebola, sparking fears the West African country could face another outbreak of the disease nearly two months after being declared Ebola-free. The boy died at his home and was buried safely to avoid spread of the disease, deputy health minister and head of Liberia’s Ebola response team, Tolbert Nyenswah, told The Associated Press. The Nedowein area where he died is close to Liberia’s international airport, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of the capital, Monrovia. Teams are investigating how the boy became infected, Nyenswah said. The area is not near Liberia’s borders with Sierra Leone and Guinea, neighboring countries that still have Ebola cases.

The main concern here is: Did this man infect anybody else before he died?

Ben Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading in the U.K.

The World Health Organization declared Liberia Ebola-free on May 9, after it went 42 days without a new case. A single case of Ebola means a country has Ebola, said Dr. Margaret Harris, spokeswoman for WHO in Geneva. Following the 42-day end of transmission period, there’s a 90-day period of heightened alert with a surveillance system in place, Harris said. Ebola lingers in the body for a long time, said Ben Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading in the U.K. This is the only known case in Liberia for now, according to Liberia Ebola response chief Nyenswah.

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