Description of the situation
06 December 1996
Disease Outbreak Reported
The patient who died on 5 November 1996 in a Libreville hospital was retrospectively identified as the contact of the Gabonese physician with Ebola fever who went to South Africa for medical care. No further cases have been detected among the 201 contacts traced to this patient. Surveillance of the contacts ended on 27 November. The total number of cases reported since the outbreak started remain at 27 of which 19 were fatal. On 5 December 8 patients were convalescing. Passive surveillance will continue until the outbreak can be declared over which will be on 17 December if no new cases are identified.
Health care personnel in hospitals and health centres in Libreville are provided with information and training sessions with documentation for the care and barrier nursing of cases of viral haemorrhagic fever. Appropriate infrastructures have been established to manage severe cases of diarrhoea with fever.