West Africa Is Ebola-Free, But The Virus Could Easily Return

Making remarks Thursday at the Ebola Operation Center (EOC) in Congo Town the World Health Organization Country Representative commended the Liberian Government, People, communities, health workers and partners on the successful response to the latest outbreak of Ebola.

The World Health Organisation has declared the Ebola outbreak in west Africa as being over.

The WHO official warned that the job is still not done adding that there is still an ongoing risk of re-emergence of the disease because of the virus in some survivors.

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

The most recent outbreak was in Liberia, which had previously been declared Ebola-free in May and in September previous year.

Ebola reappeared in Liberia twice after the region was declared Ebola-free in May 2015. “It does not mean that we have put our tools down and lay down our guys”.

The WHO emphasized that all three countries “remain at high risk” of small-scale re-occurrences of the disease.

The same month, a Scottish nurse who had been treated for Ebola 10 months earlier, was readmitted to hospital after the virus caused a severe disorder of her central nervous system.

The World Bank estimates the economic damage of the outbreak, which devastated the mining, agriculture and tourism industries in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, at US$2.2 billion over 2014-15.

The WHO on Friday confirmed the new Ebola case in Sierra Leone but did not immediately provide details or say whether there was a risk of others being infected.

Another potential challenge is that the virus could re-emerge among the roughly 17,000 Ebola survivors in the region, as it has done in rare cases.

“The Ministry of Health and Sanitation has dispatched a team supported by worldwide partners to investigate the suspected death and its circumstances”, it said in a note sent to health officials seen by Reuters.

According to the New York Times, the World Health Organization made the announcement that the West African Ebola outbreak was finally over, from Geneva, Switzerland, after the final cases in Liberia were cured.

Reviews of what happened during the outbreak exposed the major problems of the health systems in all three countries, as well as the shortcomings of the global community.

There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola, which spread rapidly through the impoverished, crowded neighborhoods of Liberia and Sierra Leone’s capitals in particular.