A fourth person has died of Ebola in Guinea in the latest flare-up of an epidemic that has killed more than 11,300 people in that country, Sierra Leone and Liberia since 2013 but now claims few victims.

“The young girl who was hospitalised at the Ebola treatment centre in Nzerekore is dead,” Fode Tass Sylla, spokesman for the centre that coordinates Guinea’s fight against the virus, said.

Three others have died of the virus since February 29. Health workers on Saturday also stepped up efforts to trace anyone who could have come into contact with the family.

The world’s worst recorded Ebola epidemic is believed to have started in Guinea and killed about 2,500 people there by December last year, at which point the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) said it was no longer actively transmitted.

WHO warned, however, that Ebola could resurface at any time, since it can linger in the eyes, central nervous system and bodily fluids of some survivors.

It was not immediately clear how the villagers from Korokpara, around 100 kilometres from Nzerekore, had contracted the disease, but the area had previously resisted efforts to fight the illness in the initial epidemic.

Reuters