Africa’s biggest Ebola outbreak in seven years has probably spread from Guinea to neighboring Liberia and also threatens Sierra Leone.

Five people are suspected to have died from the disease in Lofa county in northern Liberia, Bernice Dahn, Liberia’s chief medical officer, said at a briefing yesterday. At least 86 cases and 59 deaths have been recorded across Guinea, the west African country’s health ministry said. The capital, Conakry, hasn’t been affected, government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said.

cnn.com - by Christabelle Fombu and Susanna Capelouto - March 23, 2014

(CNN) -- An Ebola outbreak has killed at least 59 people in Guinea, UNICEF said, as the deadly hemorrhagic fever has quickly spread from southern communities in the West African nation.

Experts in the country had been unable to identify the disease, whose symptoms -- diarrhea, vomiting and fever -- were first observed last month.

Health Minister Remy Lamah said Saturday initial test results confirm the presence of a viral hemorrhagic fever, which according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body.

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CURRENT CONDITIONS Guinea has a tropical climate with two alternating seasons, a November–March dry season and an April–October rainy season. In general, rainfall increases from north to south. Average annual rainfall is 1,988 mm. Rice is the staple crop, and other important food crops are corn, fonio groundnuts, and cassava. Most of the population is rural, and the agricultural sector is the major employer. Urbanization is a growing phenomenon in Guinea. Agricultural GDP remained at about 20 percent of total GDP between the mid-1980s and 2005. By 2009, that share declined to less than 10 percent, reflecting a stagnation in agricultural productivity and the growth of other sectors like mining and the service sector.  

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The World Health Organization (WHO) unveiled 5 priority actions to strengthen the fight against one of the world’s leading infectious killers - tuberculosis (TB) - at the 23 October launch of a new report on the epidemic. The 2013 TB report calls for more attention to multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and reaching those who are being missed by the system.

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