Monrovia (AFP) - A teenager
has died in Liberia
in the first such death since the country was officially declared free of the
virus in September, an official said Tuesday.
"The
15-year-old has finally died. He died yesterday," Dr Francis Karteh, head
of Liberia's
national Ebola crisis unit, told AFP.
He added that the teenager's parents had also tested positive for
the virus and were under observation in the capital Monrovia.
It was confirmed last week that the boy and two of his relatives
had contracted Ebola, which has left more than 11,300 people dead since
December 2013 in
its worst ever outbreak, mainly in the west African nations of Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone.
Liberia was first declared
Ebola free in May, only to see the fever resurface six weeks later. The country
was declared to have officially beaten the epidemic for a second time in
September.
The World Health Organization previously reported that the boy was
10 years old, but Karteh said he was in fact 15.
He fell sick on November 14 and was
hospitalised three days later in Monrovia,
the WHO said, adding that 150 people who had been in contact with the family
were being monitored.
Since the beginning of the outbreak, Liberia has
registered more than 10,600 cases and more than 4,800 deaths, according to a
WHO situation report published last week.
The teenager's death comes days after
Guinea's
last known Ebola case, a three-week old girl, was declared cured on November
16.
That announcement triggered a 42-day
countdown -- twice the incubation period of the virus -- before Guinea can be
declared Ebola-free.
Sierra Leone was declared to
have beaten the virus earlier this month.
-YAHOONEWS
