Ebola returns to Sierra Leone

Two new cases of Ebola Virus Disease has been confirmed in Freetown, Sierra Leone, dashing hopes that the capital city is free of the deadly virus.

A spokesman for the National Ebola Response Centre, Sidi Tunis, said there were concerns about further infections since the two cases were reported in Magazine, a densely populated slum in the capital city.

Health officials said the first case in Freetown since May 29 was a fisherman, who caught the hemorrhagic fever from his girlfriend in the northern district of Port Loko.

“This is worrisome because we had already closed all Ebola quarantine structures in Freetown since we had gone for weeks without a case,” said Tunis.

Shortly afterwards, a family member, who lived in the same household, also caught the virus.

The other six cases recorded in Sierra Leone over the past week were in the northern provinces of Port Loko and Kambia, health ministry data showed.

The worst known Ebola epidemic in history has killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa, about a third of them in Sierra Leone.

Liberia became Ebola-free in May, but its neighbours Sierra Leone and Guinea are still struggling to get to zero cases despite hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.