Guinea Declared Ebola Free

Guinea was declared free of Ebola transmission on Tuesday after more than 2,500 people died from the virus in the West African nation, leaving Liberia as the only country still counting down the days until the end of the epidemic.

There have been more than 15,000 confirmed cases of the Ebola virus and more than 11,000 total deaths around the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 A country is generally considered free of human-to-human transmission once a 42-day period has passed since the last known Ebola case was tested negative for a second time.

AP noted that Guinea was the last to struggle to stamp out the deadly disease, until Liberia saw a new case in November.

The announcement is being viewed as an important milestone in the fight against the outbreak where at one point real fears of a global contagion gripped communities across the world.

It’s the first time the three hardest hit countries – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone – “have stopped the original chains of transmission that were responsible for starting this devastating outbreak two years ago”, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said in a statement. In fact, Guinea now enters a three-month period of heightened surveillance to make sure any new cases are quickly identified and treated immediately before spreading to other patients. Guinea’s neighbor Liberia has been twice declared to be Ebola-free only to report that it had reappeared. Thousands of other survivors have reported other symptoms of lingering “post-Ebola syndrome” that include everything from migraine headaches to blindness.

“They are traumatized and continue to be stigmatized in their neighbourhoods”. When white people were threatened by the disease, there was exponentially more concern and interest; when they were no longer threatened, there was silence.

Susan Michaels-Strasser, a nurse and professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said the news gave relief to many as people in these countries are living in very tough conditions.

“The coming months will be absolutely critical”, said Dr. Bruce Aylward of WHO’s Ebola response team. “They were more likely to die if infected”, stressed UNICEF Guinea Representative Mohamed Ag Ayoya.