At least two new cases of Ebola have emerged in Liberia more than a month after the West African country was declared to be free of the virus by the World Health Organization May 9, according to the New York Times.
The first case announced by Tolbert Nyenswah, Liberia's deputy minister for health, was of a 17-year-old boy who died over the weekend in a small town outside Monrovia. Healthcare workers had to exhume the boy's body to draw blood for an Ebola test, which came back positive on Tuesday.
Moses Massaquoi, MD, the case manager for a local response team, told NYT a person connected to the boy also tested positive for Ebola, and the tests of two other people have produced inconclusive results.
According to Dr. Massaquoi, 33 people who had contact with the teenager have been isolated in their homes and are being monitored, and three people are scheduled to be sent to a treatment unit Wednesday.
Liberia's newly appointed Minister of Health Bernice Dahn, MD, told NYT investigators are trying to determine how the boy had become infected.
Since the beginning of the recent Ebola virus epidemic, Liberia has suffered more than 4,800 deaths.
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