Local media say the first case of this fever was recorded last month and thereafter, 35 cases have been recorded by local health officials resulting in 23 deaths.
Local media reports further say the strange disease has been identified by health authorities as hemorrhagic fever.
The disease was said to have mainly spread because victims had come into direct contact with the affected persons. Those affected have now been isolated and samples had been sent to Senegal and France for further tests.
Prevention of epidemics in the Health Ministry, Sakoba Keita told reporters that the symptom of the disease is vomiting and stomach ache.
“Symptoms appear as diarrhea and vomiting, with a very high fever, some cases showed relatively heavy bleeding”.
“We thought it was Lassa fever or another form of cholera but this disease seems to strike like lightning, we are looking at all possibilities, including Ebola, because bush meat is consumed in that region and Guinea is in the Ebola belt,” Mr. Keita said.
Ebola is a deadly fever which causes an extremely severe disease in humans and in non-human primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fever.
He however added that no cases of the highly contagious Ebola fever have ever been recorded in the country.
Health facilities in Guinea are relatively poor and many of the population in local media are calling for international support from the World Health Organization.
Health experts describe the hemorrhagic fever as a group of illnesses that are caused by several distinct families of viruses which result in severe multi-system syndrome, affecting the multiple organ systems in the body and damaging the overall vascular system causing the body to stop regulating itself.
Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News
Writer’s Email Address: Adamsisska@googlemail.com
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