Ebola's recent reappearance in Liberia is over, the World Health
Organization said Thursday, prompting the group to declare the country free of
the deadly virus for the second time this year.
Liberia, one of
three West African nations ravaged by an outbreak that has killed more than
11,000 people in nearly two years, initially was declared Ebola-free on May 9.
But a teen who lived near a Liberian airport contracted the virus and died in
late June.
Six total cases
were discovered in the country from late June to July. Two people, including
the teen, died, the WHO said.
Because 42 days
have passed since the last infected person tested clear for the disease, the
WHO said it could now declare Liberia free of Ebola. Forty-two days represents
two maximum incubation periods.
"WHO commends the government of Liberia and its people on
the successful response to this recent re-emergence," the organization
said. "It is in full accord with government calls for sustained
vigilance."
More than 4,800
of the 10,666 people who contracted the hemorrhagic fever in Liberia died since
that country's first case was reported in late March 2014.
The outbreak has
also killed thousands in Liberia's northern neighbors, Guinea (2,500) and
Sierra Leone (3,950), starting with the December 2013 death of a 2-year-old
child in Guinea, the WHO has said.
Epidemic fading
But the epidemic that sickened more than
28,000 people in those three nations is winding to an end, with only a few
cases remaining.
Just one new
case was reported in Sierra Leone in the last two weeks. That country and
Guinea have combined for three confirmed cases per week for the last five
weeks, the WHO said.
That's in stark
contrast to the hundreds of new weekly cases that the three countries were
seeing at the epidemic's peak a year ago.
An experimental Ebola vaccine may be helping. The WHO in July
declared the single-dose VSV-EBOV vaccine to be "highly effective"
after it was given on a trial basis to 1,200 front-line health care workers and
4,000 close contacts of Ebola patients in Guinea this year.
The trial was
extended to Sierra Leone last month after the latest Ebola case was reported
there. People who were in contact with that patient were to be vaccinated, the
WHO said.
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