Guinea Ebola deaths pass 200

The World Health Organization (WHO), the UN's health agency, said Wednesday it had registered 328 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, including 208 deaths. Twenty-one of those deaths were registered between May 29 and June 1 alone.

The report comes despite an April 24 statement from Guinea's health ministry that said the situation was "more and more under control thanks to measures taken by the government and its partners."

More than half of the new deaths in Guinea were in the southern region of Gueckedou, near the Sierra Leone and Liberian borders.

Both neighboring countries were also increasingly affected, said the WHO. In Sierra Leone, there have been 79 confirmed and suspected cases to date. The virus has also appeared to have resurfaced in Liberia, which earlier this year had seen 12 suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola, including nine deaths.

Hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola usually spread through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions. The Ebola virus leads to severe hemorrhagic fever and internal bleeding. There is no vaccine or specific treatment with a fatality rate of up to 90 percent.

The virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nearly 300 people died in that outbreak, which was the deadliest on record.

hc/crh (AFP, Reuters)