According to the WHO, no cases of Ebola were reported in the week ending October 4 in Guinea and Sierra Leone, the two countries still affected. A first for a year and a half.
A year and a half since West Africa had not known such good news. Last week, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea recorded no new cases of Ebola, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday. The end of an ordeal? Not yet, because according to the Organization, a country is declared free of the virus only after 42 days – twice the maximum incubation period – after the last known case.
Liberia is almost there as it has not seen any new cases for three weeks. The WHO even declared the end of transmission of the Ebola virus there recently.
However, the Organization remains cautious in indicating at the same time that two cases considered as presenting a high risk of positivity had been lost to follow-up, in the districts of Bombali and Kambia (north-western Liberia).
“Efforts to find these cases and mitigate the risk of undetected transmission will continue until 42 days have passed since the last case recorded in each of the districts,” said the WHO.
Guinea and Sierra Leone remain under surveillance
In Guinea, the situation remains more worrying, with more than 500 “contacts” remaining under surveillance in three of the country’s regions. A WHO spokesperson said, according to AFP, that all these potential cases were associated with a single chain of transmission from Ratoma, a district of the capital, Conakry.In addition, 290 other contacts have been identified but could not be followed in the past 42 days, he added.
The last four cases in Guinea, recorded on September 26 and 27 in Forecaria (southwest), concerned people infected with an unknown carrier, probably linked to the Ratoma chain of transmission, according to the WHO. Sierra Leone, for its part, recorded a few more cases of contamination in September, so it still remains under surveillance.
As a reminder, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the most serious since the identification of the virus in Central Africa in 1976. According to the latest available data, it killed 11,312 out of a total of 28,457. people infected since December 2013. Almost all fatal cases have been recorded in the 3 West African countries mentioned above.
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