Sierra Leone free of Ebola, enters 90-day period of enhanced surveillance

Sierra Leone is free of Ebola transmission and the West African nation entered a 90-day enhanced surveillance period on 7 November 2015, with no new case of Ebola virus disease being registered.

Sierra Leone had met the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for declaring the end of Ebola transmission.

The WHO, declared the end of fresh Ebola transmissions in Sierra Leone through the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) on 7 November, 2015, at an official event. 

The event was attended by His Excellency the president of Sierra Leone, Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, key government officials, local government and traditional authorities.

Religious leaders, leaders of political parties, members of the international community, healthcare and Ebola response workers, non-governmental organizations and representatives of civil society were present at the event.

Since the first Ebola case was detected in country 25th may 2014, 11 doctors, 221 nurses and 3,589 fell victim to the scourge in the country.

"Both Liberia and Sierra Leone have now interrupted all remaining chains of Ebola virus transmission and Guinea reported no confirmed cases in the week to 8 November," the WHO reported last week.

Meanwhile, since the first outbreak of the virus that killed 11,200 people in West Africa, no new lab-confirmed case had been reported in Guinea in the week to 8 November.

However, this in no way means the country was completely clear, and new cases could still exist but remain undetected.

However, the report does give room for hope that the epidemic that infected over 25,000 Africans could finally be coming to an end. Guinea was among the last three countries severely affected by the outbreak.

Four new cases were detected in Guinea last month and following this people who had been at close contact with these patients had been closely monitored by healthcare workers. All contacts had undergone a 21-day follow-up period that would be completed on 14 November.

"There remains a near-term risk of further cases among both registered and untraced contacts," the WHO concluded from these findings.