A 10-year-old boy has been diagnosed with Ebola in Liberia almost three months after the country was declared officially free of the virus.
The case means that a new outbreak will be formally declared in the West African nation, which has already seen thousands of deaths.
The boy is being treated at a centre on the outskirts of the capital Monrovia, health officials said.
Dr Francis Kateh, the chief medical officer and acting head of the Ebola case management system, said the child, who lives in the eastern Paynesville district of Monrovia, was put into isolation late on Thursday.
“Yes, yes, you can say confirmed,” he said, when asked if the illness was definitely Ebola.
Liberia was first declared Ebola-free on 9 May this year but a resurgence of the disease in late June affected four people, killing two.
After the mandatory 42 days with all patients testing negative, the World Health Organisation gave the country the all-clear once again on 3 September and a three-month period of heightened surveillance started.
Liberia has seen more than 10,600 cases of Ebola since the breakout started in early 2014, with 4,808 people dying of the disease.
It is the highest toll of any country affected by the outbreak, which killed almost 4,000 people in neighbouring Sierra Leone and 2,500 more in Guinea.
Guinea was previously the only country where Ebola was active, with the last-known patient in the world named as Nubia Soumah, a three-week-old baby girl.
She has now been tested negative twice in a row and if no further cases emerge in the country, the epidemic will be officially over there in January.
Additional reporting by PA
