Why Sierra Leone’s “last” case of Ebola may not be its last

Sierra Leone celebrated an important milestone yesterday, Monday, 24 August 2015.

“We need to put in place corrective strategies just as quickly as possible”, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told a committee created to review why existing global health regulations failed to prevent the deadly Ebola outbreak.

Director of Communications at the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), Sidi Yaya Tunis says the woman who was the mother of the trader that left Freetown and went to Massessebe has responded well to treatment and has undergone two negative tests already.

With no new instances reported in two weeks, Sierra Leone joins neighbouring Liberia within the countdown to being declared Ebola-free, with Guinea the one nation the place individuals are nonetheless falling sick with the lethal tropical fever. The other four workers had exposure that was not the result of a sharps injury, and were judged to be at lower risk. “Therefore, we cannot know for sure whether or not postexposure prophylaxis prevented the onset of Ebola-virus disease”, Jacobs said. That 42-day limit is twice the incubation period of the virus.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic confirmed the importance of this milestone.

“Surveillance, searching for cases, notifying any deaths in the community, testing anyone with Ebola symptoms, all must continue intensively”.

Photo: Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Brima Kargbo in group with the Vaccine Trial Team and participants. But with such small numbers, past outbreaks haven’t provided sufficient opportunities for extensive study, Bausch said.

Training of Sierra Leonean doctors and nurses in the use of the vaccine will be carried out by experts from the UK.

Ebola is now considered under control in Liberia, where 10,672 cases have been reported and 4,808 people have died.

The world’s worst known Ebola epidemic has raged in West Africa for more than 18 months, infecting more than 28,000 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Dr Michael Jacobs, the infectious disease specialist who leads the team at the Royal Free said that the findings merited further investigation.

“All of this is superseded if the vaccine is really effective but it’s nearly impossible to envisage a situation where Ebola would arrive and you would have an entirely vaccinated population”.

The trial will target those that have come into contact with Ebola sufferers – including family members, so as to tackle the spread and transmission of the virus, he said.