The story appears on

Page A2

May 10, 2015

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » World

WHO says Liberia is Ebola-free

LIBERIA’S government and the World Health Organization yesterday declared the country free from Ebola after 42 days without a new case of the deadly virus, which killed more than 4,700 people there during a yearlong epidemic.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, however, urged vigilance until the worst outbreak of the disease ever recorded is also extinguished in neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone.

A total of 11,005 people have died from Ebola in the three West African countries since the outbreak began in December 2013, according to the WHO.

“Liberia is free of Ebola ... We have defeated it,” Liberia’s Information Minister Lewis Brown said on state radio.

Liberia was recording hundreds of new cases a week at the peak of the outbreak between August and October, causing international alarm.

The United States sent in hundreds of soldiers to help build treatment clinics, a move seen as a game changer in the battle to stem the disease.

The White House welcomed the news as a milestone for Liberians but said there was more work to be done in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

In Liberia, the government ran a national awareness campaign to educate Liberians on how to protect themselves from Ebola.

“It is a tribute to the government and people of Liberia that determination to defeat Ebola never wavered,” the WHO said yesterday.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend