In a follow-up to a report on the recent “flare-up” of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Liberia, the Associated Press is reporting that a 15-year-old boy from a Monrovia suburb, who was diagnosed with EVD last week, has died, making this the first EVD fatality in the country in months.

Produced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under a very-high magnification, this digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicts a single filamentous Ebola virus particle that had budded from the surface of a VERO cell of the African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line.
Produced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under a very-high magnification, this digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicts a single filamentous Ebola virus particle that had budded from the surface of a VERO cell of the African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line.

Liberia had been Ebola-free since September.  It was first declared Ebola-free May 9 by the World Health Organization, but new cases emerged in June.

Dr Bruce Aylward, Special Representative of the Director-General for the Ebola Response, in a recent briefing on the situation said the confirmed cases from the same family being treated in an Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia and 150 contacts being monitored.

Of the few flares that we have seen so far, they have been managed very quickly, very rapidly, but again…we have to be on guard, right through 2016, to make sure that any new emergences are stopped.

It is concerning, it has to be managed incredibly aggressively and professionally, because it occurring in a capital city, of an important country in West Africa, that is Monrovia of course, but based on the performance of that program over the last 12 months we have strong confidence that this will get managed very quickly.

“We are in a very strong position with the epidemiology of Ebola right now, we are very close to seeing the end of that chain of transmission that began more than nearly two years ago now, in a place called Gueckedou in Guinea.

As of Nov. 15, Liberia has reported 10,672 EVD cases and 4,808 fatalities since the outbreak began in March 2014.