Liberia is lifting nationwide curfews and re-opening borders shut last year at the height of the Ebola crisis, after the retreat of an epidemic that has killed thousands.
The West African nation and its neighbours Guinea and Sierra Leone have seen new infections drop to a tenth of the numbers being reported at the September-October peak of the outbreak.
Liberia, which recorded the most deaths and was hardest hit, is leading the recovery, reporting just a handful of new confirmed cases each week.
“President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has ordered the lifting of the curfew imposed nationwide. It takes effect beginning Sunday, February 22,” a statement from the presidency said.
“She has also ordered the re-opening of all the country’s main borders that were ordered closed during the Ebola outbreak.”
The presidency said “health protocols” would prevent the importation of the virus through any of the re-opened crossing points to Guinea and Sierra Leone, which were closed last year as part of a state of emergency.
Almost 9,500 people have died in the outbreak, although health authorities have admitted that the real picture could be far worse, as many fatal cases may not have been reported.
The World Bank said in January the economic damage of the epidemic could run to $8 billion, trimming an earlier estimate of $32 billion.
The curfew announcement came as the United States said Ms Sirleaf would visit the White House on February 27.
She will meet US president Barack Obama to discuss the Ebola response and the gruelling task of economic recovery.
“President Sirleaf’s visit comes at a time of critical cooperation between the United States and Liberia,” Mr Obama’s office said in a statement.
Eradicating the virus
The leaders of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone vowed at a summit in Guinea to eradicate the virus by mid-April.
Medical aid agency Doctors without Borders has closed its Ebola clinic at the former epicentre of the outbreak in Sierra Leone, in a further symbol of the retreat of the epidemic.
The charity, known by its French initials MSF, opened the treatment unit in Kailahun when the impoverished eastern district and neighbouring Kenema were being overwhelmed.
Ebola has killed almost 3,500 Sierra Leoneans since it was first reported in Kailahun in May last year, the first case being a traditional healer whose funeral led to the infections of 14 women.
The healer’s burial was in Koindu, a diamond-mining town in Kailahun across the border from southern Guinea, where the outbreak began in December 2013.
An investigation later found she had been treating Guinean victims of a mysterious illness that turned out to be Ebola.
The epidemic exploded in Kailahun and Kenema after her funeral, eventually spreading throughout the country.
Sierra Leone has seen a cumulative total of more than 11,000 cases during the epidemic but no new cases have been reported in Kailahun for more than two months.
The focus of the response in Sierra Leone is now its western area including the capital Freetown, where the outbreak has yet to be brought under control.
The country placed 700 homes in Freetown in quarantine last week following the death of a fisherman who tested positive for Ebola.
Transmission remains “widespread” in Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organisation, which reported 74 new confirmed cases in the week to February 15, down from 76 the week before.
AFP