Barely two weeks after the World Health Organisation declared Liberia an Ebola-free country, Liberian health officials have discovered and confirmed a fresh case of the Ebola Virus Disease.
The new case was detected in a 44-year-old female food seller that health officials said had not been on a monitoring list for possible exposure and had not travelled outside Liberia. This is coming more than two weeks after the last known Ebola case in the country was discharged from the isolation centre on March 5.
In a statement by the Liberian Information Ministry, it said it was unclear how the woman had been infected, but all suspicions point that the woman could have had sexual intercourse with an Ebola survivor.
While that is only speculative, researchers have found evidence that Ebola may persist in semen for up to three months after recovery, and abstinence is recommended. In part for this reason, the World Health Organization intends to release new guidelines for when an Ebola epidemic ends, a WHO official said.
To be declared Ebola-free, countries must wait 42 days from when the last patient tests negative for a second time. The new guidelines would recommend “heightened surveillance” for an additional 90 days, to take into account the potential for sexual transmission and hidden transmission chains.
Two Liberian triage nurses employed by the International Rescue Committee, an American relief agency, had recognized the patient’s symptoms and alerted the adjacent Ebola isolation centre run by Doctors Without Borders, who took the patient for testing.
The initial results came back positive on Friday.