Guinea has recorded up to 10 suspected cases of Ebola and five people have died since the start of a new outbreak of the deadly virus in the southeast of the West African nation, medical authorities said on Tuesday.
Guinea's ministry of health said it has identified 115 contacts of the known cases in the city of Nzerekore in the country's south east and 10 in the capital Conakry since the outbreak was confirmed on Sunday.
Unlike the deadliest known outbreak, which tore through West Africa from 2013-16, Guinean authorities have said they are better prepared to stop the spread of the virus.
Democratic Republic of Congo also reported a resurgence of the virus on February 7.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) in response has alerted six countries to watch out for potential Ebola cases after fresh outbreaks in Guinea and Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokeswoman said.
"We have already alerted the six countries around, including of course Sierra Leone and Liberia, and they are moving very fast to prepare and be ready and to look for any potential infection," the WHO's Margaret Harris told a Geneva briefing. She did not specify the other countries.
Harris added that health authorities had identified close to 300 Ebola contacts in the Congo outbreak and around 109 in the Guinea one.
Gene sequencing of Ebola samples from both Congo and Guinea to learn more about origins of new outbreaks and identify the strains was under way, she added.
"We don't know if this is down to Ebola persisting in the human population or if it's simply moving again from the animal population but the genetic sequencing that's ongoing will help with that information," she said.
The Ebola virus causes severe bleeding and organ failure and is spread through contact with body fluids.
The 2013-16 outbreak killed 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
