The two cases emerged from a family from Koropara in the southern region of N'Zerekore, roughly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southeast of Guinea's capital, Conakry.

The two bodies, belonging to a man and a woman, tested positive for Ebola months after the outbreak had been declared over in the West African country, and mere hours after neighboring Sierra Leone had announced the end of the recent flare-up of the virus there. The Agence France news agency said that the two deceased patients were a married couple who had both shown Ebola symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea.

Test samples from the two patients "revealed the presence of the Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus," the government said in a statement.

"For now, we have two confirmed cases and three suspected cases," it added.

Re-emergence of Ebola

Ibrahima Sylla, a spokesman for the national anti-Ebola effort, said there were three further probable cases, but stressed that authorities were taking appropriate measures to contain the spread of the virus. Guinea was originally declared free from Ebola on December 29, 2015.

The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak over on January 14 when Liberia became the last of the three countries to have no further recorded transmissions of the disease.

ss/bw (AP, AFP)