Liberia has discharged its last confirmed Ebola patient, as it reported for the first time in nine months it had gone a full week without any new infections.
Beatrice Yordoldo left the Chinese-built Ebola treatment unit (ETU) in the Paynesville suburb of the capital Monrovia to cheers from healthcare workers, government officials and aid workers.
“Today I am very grateful to the almighty God and the Chinese ETU, and all of the Liberian nurses that are working with them,” Ms Yordoldo, who was admitted two weeks ago, said.
“I did not know I could make it.”
Liberia reported no new confirmed cases during the week to March 1, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
“This is the last confirmed Ebola case throughout the country,” deputy health minister Tolbert Nyenswah told reporters as Ms Yordoldo was given an emotional send-off.
“We have gone for 13 days now without a new case. This is a great day for Liberia.”
Almost 24,000 people were infected with the virus since December 2013, almost all in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and 9,807 of them have died, according to the WHO.
Of those, 9,249 cases including 4,117 deaths were registered in Liberia, which six months ago was reporting more than 300 new cases each week.
At the height of the epidemic in a country whose health infrastructure had been ravaged by back-to-back civil wars, overflowing health clinics had to turn people away, often to die in the streets.
But a huge national and international response helped stem the spread.
Of 45 samples tested nationwide last week, none were positive, the WHO said, adding that it was first time there had been no new confirmed cases since May 26 last year.
Ebola cases on rise in Sierra Leone and Guinea
But the outlook was more worrying in Guinea and Sierra Leone, which jointly reported 132 new confirmed cases last week.
Sierra Leone, which counts the most cases in total at 11,466, including 3,546 deaths, registered 81 new confirmed infections last week, up from 65 the week before.
More than half of the 32 confirmed Ebola deaths in Guinea last week occurred in the community, rather than treatment units, while the figure was 16 per cent in Sierra Leone.
But both Sierra Leone and Guinea continued to see high numbers of people dying of Ebola in their communities, “suggesting that the need for early isolation and treatment is not yet understood, accepted or acted upon”, the WHO warned.
Unsafe burials also continued to be a problem in the two countries, with 16 registered last week alone.
The first large-scale trial of an Ebola vaccine will begin in Guinea at the weekend, the WHO said, weeks after a similar test kicked off in Liberia.
The Phase III testing of the vaccine – one of two that are in the most advanced stages of development – aims to ensure it provides protection against the virus.
AFP