WHO registers 328 reported cases of disease in Guinea as Sierra Leone and Liberia also see more outbreaks

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

More than 200 people have died from the highly contagious Ebola virus in Guinea, amounting to one of the worst ever outbreaks of the disease, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

The UN's health agency said it had so far registered 328 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, including 208 deaths. Twenty-one deaths were registered between 29 May and 1 June alone.

Neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia have also increasingly been affected, said the WHO.

The organisation has described west Africa's first-ever outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic fever as one of the most challenging since the virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Two hundred and eighty people died in that outbreak, which was the deadliest on record.

To date, 79 confirmed and suspected cases have surfaced in Sierra Leone, where the death toll from the disease has jumped from one a week ago, to six, the agency said.

The virus, meanwhile, appeared to have resurfaced in Liberia, which earlier this year had had 12 suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola, including nine deaths, but had not seen any new cases over a stretch of nearly two months.

A person believed to have been infected in Kailahun, in Sierra Leone, travelled across the border and died in Foya, the WHO said, pointing out that the body was taken back to Kailahun to be buried.