Liberia places over 150 Ebola contacts under surveillance

world current news updates  Nov 23 2015

More than 150 people have been placed under surveillance in Liberia, in an effort to control a new Ebola outbreak in the capital.

Three Ebola cases emerged in the country on Friday. The first of the new patients was a 15-year-old boy from a suburb of the capital Monrovia.

Two other family members have since been confirmed as positive and they are all hospitalised.

It is not known how the boy was infected and no explanations were offered, but investigations are ongoing.

"We have three confirmed cases and have listed 153 contacts, and we have labelled them as high, medium and low in terms of the risk," Liberia's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francis Kateh told Reuters late on Saturday.

Liberia has twice been declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization, once in May and again on Sept. 3, only for new cases to emerge.

The West African country has suffered the highest death toll in the worst known Ebola outbreak in history, losing more than 4,800 people.