21 people, from whih 12 died, have become sick from a mystery illness since attending a funeral in Sinoe County, Liberia on April 23.
Symptoms of the illness include headache, diarrhea, vomiting and confusion. Health officials immediately tested the victims for Ebola, yellow fever and Lassa fever, but they were all ruled out.
The communication director for Liberia’s Ministry of Health explains: “April 25, we got a call from the Sinoe County health team about a series of unexplained deaths.” and adds: “Timing of the events, duration between disease onset and death, higher case fatality among children are all suggestive of ingestion or exposure to a contaminant. But we are still not aware of what killed them.”
CNN reports that People came to the funeral from six counties. Some of the victims died in the hospital in Sinoe County, a four-hour drive southeast of the capital city, Monrovia. One person died in a hospital in Monrovia. Four people have been discharged from the hospital.
Those currently hospitalized have stabilized, and their status is improving.
Liberia, along with Guinea and Sierra Leone, had been at the epicenter of the global outbreak of that disease, which infected roughly 28,600 people and killed more than 11,300 in those three countries beginning in 2013. The WHO declared Liberia free of active Ebola transmission in June 2016.
Scientits are currently analysing the samples taken and will be looking for other hemorrhagic fevers and for bacteria, if there was any common exposure to water contamination or food contamination.
