Ivory Coast Confirms First Ebola Case Since 1994

Officials say it’s not yet clear whether this case is linked to an outbreak in Guinea earlier this summer.

Written byAnnie Melchor

| 3 min read

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photo of skyline of Abidjan in Ivory Coast, showing a coastal skyline of skyscrapers and a blue sky with white clouds in the background

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Update (September 1): The World Health Organization announced yesterday in a statement that a woman suspected of having Ebola virus in Ivory Coast had no evidence of the virus when samples were retested at the Pasteur Institute in Lyon, France. According to the statement, none of the woman’s contacts have tested positive or started displaying symptoms of the virus, and the WHO is now downgrading its containment efforts in Ivory Coast.

Ivory Coast’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization announced Saturday (August 14) that the first case of Ebola virus had been detected in the country since 1994. According to the Associated Press, Health Minister Pierre N’Gou Demba says the virus was detected in an 18-year-old woman who had traveled by bus from Guinea to Abidjan, a major metropolitan center and the largest city in Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire). She tested positive ...

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Meet the Author

Annie Melchor
Stephanie "Annie" Melchor got her PhD from the University of Virginia in 2020, studying how the immune response to the parasite Toxoplasma gondii leads to muscle wasting and tissue scarring in mice. While she is still an ardent immunology fangirl, she left the bench to become a science writer and received her master’s degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2021. You can check out more of her work here.
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