Liberia now declared Ebola-free, but outbreak continues over border

Reuters ^ | 05/08/2015

[SeekAndFind]

Liberia was declared free from Ebola on Saturday after 42 days without a new case, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said, but it urged vigilance until the worst-ever recorded outbreak of the virus was extinguished in neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone.

A total of 11,005 people have died from Ebola in Liberia, neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone since the outbreak began in December 2013, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Nearly half of those deaths have been in Liberia, where the outbreak peaked between August and October, with hundreds of cases a week, sparking international alarm. The United States sent in hundreds of troops to help build treatment clinics in a country founded by freed U.S. slaves.

Helped by the visible U.S. military presence, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government launched a national awareness campaign to stem the infectious disease, which is spread by physical contact with sick people.

MSF said that Liberia's completion of the WHO's benchmark for the end of an Ebola epidemic - 42 days without a new case, marking twice the maximum incubation period of the virus - should not lead to complacency.

“We can’t take our foot off the gas until all three countries record 42 days with no cases,” said Mariateresa Cacciapuoti, MSF’s head of mission in Liberia.

She urged Liberia to step up cross-border surveillance to prevent Ebola slipping back into the country.

[stevio]

Cool, so the emancipated are free to emigrate.

[exDemMom]

This is fantastic. Our military really did a great job helping these people.

[re_nortex]

But hussein will find some other region to import those with obola to America. He did it before back in October and surely has a scheme to do it again -- even bigger and more widespread this time around.

[Scrambler Bob]

Ebola-free??

Who ever paid for it, anyway?

[maddog55]

When the patients all die you eventually get to a non-epedemic status through attrition.

[Jim Noble]

The notion that these places are "countries" with "borders" is ludicrous.

Yes, all 3 have flags, and large missions in New York, London, and Geneva. But that's about it.

The Ebola maps make it clear that this area is one place, distinct from Senegal, Mali, and Ivory Coast, and that people move around in it pretty much at will. There are several nations that inhabit the area (or tribes, if you will), but they exist without regard to fictional borders.