Support to children essential as West Africa declared Ebola

For example, the World Health Organization said the Ebola virus can remain in the semen of a small number of male survivors for as long as 1 year, and in rare instances, be transmitted to sexual partners.

The World Health Organization announced Thursday that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is over – for now. 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.

Liberia was previously declared Ebola-free in May, but the virus soon flared up twice more.

“There is still ongoing risk of re-emergence of the disease because of persistence of the virus in a proportion of survivors”.

“Yesterday, as Liberia marked the end of Ebola transmission-following Guinea’s and Sierra Leone’s declarations on December 29 and November 7, 2015, respectively-these three nations can take pride in their perseverance and commitment to reach this critical milestone”.

At its peak, the tropical haemorrhagic virus devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, scything lives and dealing a hammer blow to weak economies and fragile health systems.

But in a statement released in Geneva, Chan added that “our work is not done, and vigilance is needed to prevent new outbreaks”. The region as a whole was cleared Ebola-free this past Thursday after Liberia was found to have rid itself of the virus.

According to him, such policy, which has been developed, will assist EVD survivors to live in good family and community life, reduce stigma and minimize the risk of the Ebola virus transmission.

The U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa had been “a fundamental test” of the world’s ability to come together to stanch the pandemic. A Sierra Leone patient has tested positive for the virus after he died. “A massive effort is underway to ensure robust prevention, surveillance and response capacity across all three countries by the end of March”.

Health Officials are now urgently looking to find anyone who came in contact with the victim. “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”.