Italian health officials today announced that a nurse who recently returned from serving in Sierra Leone has been hospitalized with an Ebola infection, as the two African countries still affected by the disease reported another steep drop in cases.
The Italian nurse's illness represents the first exported case since March, a sign that the global Ebola threat still remains despite weekly cases in the outbreak region dropping to the single digits.
No airline contact tracing planned
According to statements today from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the infected healthcare worker recently returned from Sierra Leone after working in an Ebola treatment center from Feb 15 to May 6.
Media reports said the patient is a male nurse. The WHO noted that the illness is the first to be detected on Italian soil.
The nurse flew from Freetown to Rome through Casablanca on May 7, and on May 10 he experienced his first symptoms, including a fever. The patient self-isolated at home and on May 11 was taken to the infectious disease unit at Hospital of Sassari in Sardinia. His samples tested positive for Ebola the next day at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases (INMI) Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome. A specially equipped Italian Air Force plane transferred him to the INMI in Rome.
The man did not show any symptoms upon his arrival in Italy and monitored his health status according to protocols. Because his first symptoms occurred 72 hours after his last flight, contact tracing of international travelers isn't necessary, the WHO and ECDC said.
Healthcare workers at the hospital in Sardinia wore personal protective equipment and are among the patient's contacts who are being monitored, the agencies said.
Cases in outbreak region drop
Meanwhile, the two countries in West Africa where Ebola transmission is still ongoing reported 9 cases last week, half of the number reported the previous week, along with a geographic disease footprint that continues to shrink, the WHO said today in its weekly epidemiologic update.
The number reported for last week is the lowest so far this year and comes in the wake of neighboring Liberia being declared free of Ebola on May 9.
The WHO said 7 of the new cases were from Guinea, down from 9 reported the previous week, and 2 were from Sierra Leone, down from 9 the week before. It added that, as of May 12, Sierra Leone has gone 8 days without a confirmed case.
In Guinea, 6 of the 7 cases were in Forecariah district, the last remaining disease hot spot. The cases were reported in and around Moussayah subdistrict, which borders Sierra Leone's Kambia district. Guinea's seventh case was reported from Dubreka district in a person whose infection wasn't detected until he or she had died in the community. So far investigators haven't found a link between the case in Dubreka and other cases.
Despite the promising drop in cases in Guinea, the WHO signaled that response indicators still show some concerning signs. Guinea has seen several Ebola declines and flare-ups over the past several months. For example, the WHO said 4 of the country's 7 cases last week were found only after postmortem testing, a sign that the patients had not been isolated and treated. Though the number of unsafe burials declined, 23 were recorded last week.
The WHO said the indicators suggest that challenges still remain in tracking transmission chains, and it added that preliminary reports since the May 10 cutoff for weekly surveillance reporting suggest that the Dubreka case led to at least 3 more lab-confirmed cases. It warned that cases in Guinea could increase or spread in the weeks ahead.
Sierra Leone's pair of cases involve a mother and her 10-year-old daughter, who are from the Moa Wharf area near Freetown. Both were contacts of a previously known case and were under quarantine when they got sick. They received care at the Ebola treatment center in Hastings, where the mother has now tested negative for the virus two consecutive times but the daughter is still sick.
Liberia has now entered a 3-month period of heightened vigilance, and the WHO said it will keep an enhanced presence in the country for the rest of the year, focusing on areas that border Guinea and Sierra Leone.
For the fourth week in a row, no healthcare Ebola infections were reported in the region, keeping the total at 868, which includes 507 deaths. The overall number of confirmed, probable, and suspected infections in the outbreak region has edged up to 26,724, with the number of deaths increasing to 11,065, the WHO said.
See also:
May 13 WHO statement on Italian Ebola case
May 13 ECDC statement
May 12 Reuters story on Italian case
May 13 WHO Ebola situation update
