A girl suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus having her temperature checked (Photo: AFP/VNA)

The Democratic Republic of Congo announced the re-emergence of Ebola on February 7. Guinea declared an outbreak on Sunday.  The WHO has alerted six neighboring countries, including Sierra Leone and Liberia, and are moving quickly to be ready for new infections, WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told a Geneva briefing.

Guinea has reported 5 deaths and the Congo 3 in the new outbreak.  Although the Covid-19 pandemic has stretched health resources around the world, Guinea and the WHO say they are better prepared to deal with Ebola now than they were five years ago, because of progress in developing vaccines.  

Between 2013 and 2016 more than 11,000 people died in the West Africa Ebola epidemic.