Five-year-old boy tested positive for Ebola in Liberia, just days after his mother died of the virus, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday, the second flare-up to hit the West African region in recent weeks.
The boy’s mother, a 30-year-old woman, died of Ebola in the capital Monrovia last week, months after the country was declared free of the virus.
The woman’s death followed a recent flare-up that cost the lives of at least four people in neighbouring Guinea.
“A five-year-old boy, the son of the deceased, tested positive early on Sunday morning,” Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said.
More than 11,300 people have died from Ebola over the past two years in the world’s worst epidemic of the virus, nearly all of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
While the WHO said this week that West Africa’s Ebola outbreak no longer constitutes an international public health risk, there have been small flare-ups even after countries received the all-clear.
Guinea announced new cases on March 17 just hours after Sierra Leone declared an end of active transmission, which briefly meant that West Africa was officially free of Ebola.
As a result, Liberia closed its border with Guinea for fears that the virus could spread into its territory.
