A body has tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone, a spokesman for the health ministry said, just hours after the World Health Organisation said transmission of the virus in West Africa had ended.

Two swab tests carried out on the deceased person by UK health organisation Public Health England came back positive in the north of the country, the spokesman said late on Thursday.

The female student was taken ill in the northern village of Bamoi Luma near the Guinean border and died soon after, with an initial swab testing positive for Ebola, health ministry officials said.

The tests reinforce concerns about flare-ups of the virus that has killed more than 11,300 people since 2013, almost all of which were in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Sierra Leone had been declared free of the virus on 7 November.

The World Health Organisation warned on Thursday that despite there being no known transmissions of the disease in over two months, there could still cases of the disease in the region, which has suffered the world’s deadliest outbreak over the past two years, as survivors can carry the virus for months and can pass it on.

The deadliest outbreak in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations after it emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013.



At its peak, it devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week.

Rick Brennan, the WHO’s chief of emergency risk management, hailed the declaration of the end of the epidemic as an important milestone but said in Geneva that “the job is still not done” due to the persistence of the virus in survivors.



UN chief Ban Ki-moon also warned that the region could expect sporadic cases in the coming year but that “we also expect the potential and frequency of those flare-ups to decrease over time”.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report