Ivory Coast declares first Ebola patient in over 25 years ‘cured’

Ivory Coast’s health ministry announced on Tuesday that medical professionals have “cured” a patient who was infected with the first confirmed case of Ebola reported in the country since 1994 after two tests came back negative.

Announcing the situation to the media, health ministry spokesperson Serge Eholie stated that the 18-year-old female patient has been “declared cured” after doctors “performed on the patient two biological tests which were negative in an interval of 48 hours.”

The unnamed girl had arrived in the Ivory Coast from its neighboring country Guinea two weeks ago before being admitted to hospital after experiencing a fever. She is believed to have traveled by road from Labe in the north of Guinea to Ivory Coast via a 950-mile route through an area that saw Ebola outbreaks earlier this year.

Her official diagnosis marked the first confirmed case of Ebola in Ivory Coast since 1994, while neighboring Guinea has recorded infections in 2014-16 and during a four-month period earlier this year. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the case in Ivory Coast is not thought to be related to the infections that blighted Guinea, with further testing set to take place to attempt to identify the origin of the virus.

So far, the WHO has identified and contacted 49 individuals who are thought to have come into contact with the patient and officials in Ivory Coast have begun vaccinating border officials and potential contacts who might have met the 18-year-old during her journey.

Ebola is a fatal viral disease that is transmitted by close contact with an infected individual, causing debilitating, severe and potentially unstoppable bleeding. Three African nations have now recorded Ebola cases in 2021, with Ivory Coast joining the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea.

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