Abidjan (AFP) - The Ivory Coast, currently free of the Ebola epidemic ravaging its neighbours, has launched a hunt for a Guinean health worker who may have fled his home country after possibly catching the disease.

The man apparently took fright after finding out that someone who came to his clinic for treatment had died, possibly of Ebola, a senior official at Ivory Coast's National Public Health Institute told AFP.

"For the moment (this person) is not contagious," Daouda Coulibaly said, adding that the health authorities were not alarmed and "there is no panic".

"But it would be good if he got into contact with the health services," he said.

The unnamed health worker comes from an area in Guinea gripped by Ebola, which first broke out in the impoverished west African nation earlier this year and has now killed almost 4,900 people mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Ivory Coast has just reopened its airports to flights from the three affected countries, with a first flight from Conakry landing in Abidjan on Monday, but land borders remain closed.