Ebola: Boy tests positive in latest Liberia flare-up

A five-year-old boy has tested positive to Ebola in Liberia days after his mother died of the virus in the second flare-up of the disease in West Africa, an official said.


Liberian Deputy Health Minister, Tolbert Nyenswah, said that the boy was a son of a 30-year-old woman who died of Ebola in Monrovia last week.

Her death followed a recent flare-up that cost the lives of at least four people in neighbouring Guinea, months after Liberia was declared free of the virus.

``A five-year-old boy, the son of the deceased, tested positive early on Sunday morning,’’ Nyenswah said.

A report says over 11,300 people have died over the past two years in the world's worst Ebola epidemic, nearly all of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

While World Health Organisation (WHO) said West Africa's Ebola outbreak no longer constituted an international public health risk, there have been small flare-ups even after countries received the all-clear report.

Guinea announced new cases on March 17 just hours after Sierra Leone declared an end of active transmission, which briefly meant that West Africa was officially free of Ebola.

Liberia subsequently closed its border with Guinea, fearing the potential spread of the outbreak onto its territory.

It was not immediately known whether the death in Liberia was linked to the new cases in Guinea.