New Ebola Cases Arise In Sierra Leone

“WHO commends Liberia’s government and people on their effective response to this recent re-emergence of Ebola”, says Dr Alex Gasasira, WHO Representative in Liberia.

Although officials cautioned that more Ebola flare-ups were still likely, the three hardest-hit countries – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone – have been free from new cases of the disease for the last 42 days, or two full Ebola incubation cycles. The long-held practices of touching very ill people and touching the dead during funerals caused the virus to race through families and to jump borders as people traveled into neighboring countries for burials.

On Thursday, January 14, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded is finally over.

The announcement of Liberia as an Ebola-free country comes 42 days after the last Ebola case was contained without evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

Bruce Aylward, MD, MPH, the WHO’s assistant director-general in charge of Ebola outbreak response, said the risk of flare-ups is diminishing as the virus gradually fades from the survivor population. The region as a whole was cleared Ebola-free this past Thursday after Liberia was found to have rid itself of the virus.

This is the first reported case of the virus since the country was declared Ebola-free on November 7.

IFC is also providing advisory services to 800 small and medium enterprises on health, security and environment issues related to Ebola, the release said.

She added: “It is my hope and prayer that West African and the world learn from the Ebola outbreak that consumed thousands”.

Before the Ebola epidemic — which is believed to have started in rural Guinea in December 2013 — most of what was known about the disease was limited to studies of much smaller outbreaks in Congo and Uganda.

Liberia now enters a 90-day period of heightened surveillance.

Tests on a person who died in Sierra Leone tested positive for the virus.

The Ebola epidemic claimed the lives of 11,315 people and infected over 28,500.

Liberia was declared Ebola free for the first time on May 9, 2015 and September 3, 2015 for the second time.

UNICEF’s support to vulnerable children across the three countries aims to reinforce systems for child protection.

Martha Sonpon, a female health care worker who survived the latest outbreak treating patients in two different health facilities, expressed gratitude to the worldwide communities for promptly coming to the aid of Liberia during the outbreak. “Although numerous global panels of experts have called for reform, there has been little movement towards fixing the broken worldwide health systems whose failure led to the problem”.