2 cases of deadly Ebola virus confirmed in Liberia
In this Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007, file photo, A 43 year old Congolese patient, center, who has been confirmed to have Ebola hemorrhagic fever, following laboratory tests, is comforted by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) nurse Isabel Grovas, left, and Doctor Hilde Declerck, right, in Kampungu, Kasai Occidental province, Congo. An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus is believed to have killed at least 59 people in Guinea and may already have spread to neighboring Liberia, health officials said Monday, March 25, 2014. AP
MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia’s health minister says two patients have tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus, which is already believed to have killed at least 70 people in neighboring Guinea.
Walter Gwenigale told The Associated Press late Sunday that one patient was married to a Guinean man and had returned ill from a recent trip there. She died in Lofa County.
The second patient is a sister of the dead woman. Gwenigale said she is alive and has been isolated in a medical center outside of Monrovia, declining to give further details “because we don’t want to cause panic.”
Guinea confirmed last week that several victims of hemorrhagic fever in the country’s southern region had tested positive for Ebola. Cases have also been confirmed in the capital, Conakry.
The Ebola virus causes severe hemorrhagic fever in patients, in some cases leading to grisly deaths as patients bleed both internally and externally. Its initial symptoms — high fever, headache and weakness — can mimic malaria.
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