AU to deploy emergency team to Guinea over Ebola outbreak

The AU is due to send an emergency team of experts to Guinea as part of efforts to tackle an Ebola outbreak, recently detected by the government of the Western African nation.

The health authorities in Guinea declared an outbreak of Ebola over the last weekend, reporting at least three fatalities caused by the disease, the News Agency Nigeria (NAN).

The resurgence was detected in the Goueke sub-prefecture, located not from the country’s second-largest city of Nzerekore.

The previous Ebola outbreak ended in 2016.

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“The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is preparing to deploy an advance emergency response support team of experts in the next 48 hours.

“It will continue to mobilise its expertise and resources to support the response,” the bloc’s statement said.

The country’s government has already put in effect some emergency response measures, including the contact-tracing and isolation of suspected Ebola infections, which amount to at least seven.

All of them started showing Ebola-linked symptoms after attending the February 1 burial ceremony of a nurse, who was the first to succumb to the disease on January 28.

Additionally, the authorities are set to obtain more Ebola vaccines from the World Health Organisation as part of the response to the deadly disease.