Health officials of the West African country of Guinea have declared a new outbreak of Ebola.
Officials confirmed the new outbreak had claimed the lives of at least three.
Guinea, which was the site of the world's worst epidemic of Ebola, had not seen a new case of the disease since 2016. The last outbreak was in 2014 and was the deadliest recorded - infecting more than 28,000 people and killing more than 11,000.
Health officials announced the outbreak after one of their laboratories found the virus in three separate samples taken from patients who were experiencing Ebola symptoms.
The man and two women were part of a group of seven that recently attended the burial of a nurse. The group reportedly began to experience symptoms such as bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea.
"The government reassures the people that all measures are being taken to curb this epidemic as quickly as possible," Guinea's Health Ministry said in a post on social media.
Authorities have called on the public to immediately seek medical attention if they are experiencing similar symptoms. The country's health ministry said it was working to accelerate the delivery of Ebola vaccines to affected regions in case the virus starts to spread.
Following past outbreaks, researchers have been able to develop effective vaccines, tests and treatments for Ebola. The government is confident it will be able to combat the new outbreak and mitigate its effects this time around.
"Given these new tools, plus the fact that qualified Guinean health workers, who already have experience responding to Ebola, are on the ground, we hope to be able to control this outbreak quickly," the manager of the Alliance for International Medical Action said in a statement.
Unlike the previous outbreak, local health workers have been able to quickly identify clusters of infections. Teams have also been dispatched for contact tracing.
Like most other countries, West Africa is still struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic. As of Monday, the country had 14,895 confirmed cases and 84 fatalities.
