Re-emergence of Ebola in Liberia remains a mystery

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USA TODAY by Gregg Zoroya and Samwar Fallah     July 16, 2015

MONROVIA, Liberia — Six cases of Ebola have surfaced in Liberia in the two months since the nation was declared free of the deadly virus, raising fears the disease lingers in the human body in ways not fully understood.

Liberians read a story about Ebola on a public chalkboard in Monrovia on July 10, 2015. Liberia has had six new cases of Ebola after the World Health Organization declared the country free of Ebola on May 9, 2015.(Photo: Ahmed Jallanzo, EPA)

Three of those cases were in the past week, doubling the number of new infections since the virus re-emerged in late June, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday....

This new patient was a nurse who died Sunday on arrival at an Ebola treatment clinic in Monrovia, according to the United Nations and the Liberian government. She had been caring for her son, who became infected with the disease in a remote village and fled to the capital.

Preliminary evidence from genomic sequencing strongly suggests that the most likely origin of transmission is a re-emergence of the virus from a survivor within Liberia," the WHO reported Wednesday....
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/15/ebola-liberia-epidemic-sierra-leone-guinea/30183429/

WHO SITUATION REPORT                                         July 15, 2015
There were 30 confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) reported in the week to 12 July: 13 in Guinea, 3 in Liberia, and 14 in Sierra Leone. Although the total number of confirmed cases is the same as the previous week, there has been a shift in the foci of transmission. For the first time in several months, most cases were reported from Conakry and Freetown, the capitals of Guinea and Sierra Leone, respectively. All 9 of the cases reported from Conakry and all 10 of the cases reported from Freetown were either registered contacts of a previous case or have an established epidemiological link to a known chain of transmission.

 One of the 30 cases reported in the week to 12 July arose from a yet unknown source of infection. However, a substantial proportion of cases (7 of 30: 23%) continue to be identified as EVD-positive only after post-mortem testing.

This suggests that although improvements to case investigation are increasing our understanding of chains of transmission, contact tracing, which aims to minimise transmission by identifying symptoms among contacts at the earliest stage of infection, is still a challenge in several areas.

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http://apps.who.int/ebola/current-situation/ebola-situation-report-15-july-2015