The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday, August 31, 2021 that there was no Ebola virus in Côte d’Ivoire. New analyses carried out by the Institut Pasteur in Lyon (France) on samples taken from a young Guinean woman, presented by the Ivorian authorities as infected, proved that the virus was not present.
The WHO in its statement on Tuesday, 31 August, affirmed the absence of the Ebola virus in Côte d’Ivoire. This assertion was made possible thanks to analyses by the Institut Pasteur in Lyon on a young Guinean woman who was chosen by the Ivorian authorities. A source of relief for Ivorians who were in disarray after the announcement of the virus in the country on 14 August 2021.On August 14, the Institut Pasteur in Côte d’Ivoire announced that it had detected a case of Ebola virus disease. She was a young Guinean woman who had travelled in the previous days between the city of Labé, in Guinea and Abidjan, in Côte d’Ivoire.
Following the announcement, the country’s authorities and the WHO mobilized to deal with the virus. As a result, 5,000 doses of Ebola vaccines were immediately rushed from neighbouring Guinea, and the search for contact cases mobilized dozens of people.
The new analyses carried out this time on the same girl by the Bio-Mérieux laboratory and the Institut Pasteur in Lyon, France, were negative. A good news for the country but also and especially for the populations of Labé in Fouta-Djalon who were in isolation after being in contact with the girl.
