No new Ebola cases in West Africa last week

To be considered Ebola-free, a country must go for 42 days without reporting a new case of the deadly disease.

A whole week without any new Ebola cases is encouraging, although hundreds of contacts continue to undergo follow-up check-ins to ensure they stay healthy.

“This is a fight for all of us, this is the moment for all of us to stand up and be counted for our positive actions against Ebola”, said Sierra Leone’s President Koroma in an address to his nation.

The four latest cases in Guinea, reported on September 26 and 27 in Forecaria, were people infected by an unregistered contact, likely linked to the Ratoma transmission chain, World Health Organization said.

A level of fear and distrust about Ebola and the people who work to combat the virus has persisted among the citizens of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, and while these relations have improved since the virus first made its jump from an animal to a human in 2013, contacts fleeing or disappearing has remained a relatively common occurrence. Guinea still has active cases in the country, but Sierra Leone is now on its way to achieving that mark, with no Ebola cases recorded in the country since September 28.

Officials, however, still haven’t been able to trace two high-risk contacts, one each from Bombali and Kambia district.

Liberia has already been declared free of the disease after 42 days without a new case.

The number of women giving birth at health centres fell by 11 percent, and those receiving care before or after birth fell by around a fifth, despite most facilities across Sierra Leone being functional and adequately staffed, the study said. Since the outbreak began early a year ago, 881 health workers were infected and 513 died.