TheCable

Guinea has recorded three new cases of the Ebola virus disease.

Fode Tass Sylla, spokesman for the country’s national centre for the fight against Ebola, said the victims got the virus from a woman who died of Ebola.

Sylla said the body of the woman was handled without appropriate protection.

“In all, nine sick people are being treated at our centres throughout the country and most are connected to the dead woman,” he told Reuters.

The epidemic began when a 2-year-old boy fell ill in a remote Guinean village on December 26, 2013, and now risks dragging into a third year and into 2016.

It has killed around 11, 300 people out of around 28,500 known cases in Guinea and neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures.

Liberia was declared free of Ebola on September 3 after 42 days with no new cases, while Sierra Leone will be declared Ebola free on November 7 if there is no new transmission.

The 42-day countdown only starts once the last patient tests negative a second time, normally after a 48-hour gap following their first negative test.