Health - Sierra Leone

A 94-year-old Minnesota ophthalmologist doctor Lowell Gess who worked at a Sierra Leone clinic during the peak of the Ebola crisis last year has become an unlikely key player in West Africa’s response to a lingering symptom in patients seemingly cured of the deadly virus. And now, the 94-year-old eye doctor is heading back to Africa for a meeting of minds, as medical experts brainstorm on how to tackle the ongoing problem.

At least five people have died since 29 February 2016 due to a new flare up of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Guinea [1]. The first two confirmed cases of the virus were detected in the village of Korokpara and involved a mother and her five-year-old son. These are the first cases of Ebola in Guinea since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the country free of the disease in December 2015. This declaration came two years after an outbreak that began in 2013 killed approximately 2,500 people in Guinea and over 11,000 in West Africa [2]. The WHO had warned that Guinea, as well as the neighboring countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone, are at risk for ongoing smaller outbreaks due to persistence of the virus in some previously infected individuals [3]. Guinea’s 90-day heightened surveillance period was set to end in late March [4].