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UN health authority declares Liberia Ebola-free

Saturday, 09 May 2015 12:59 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 09 May 2015 12:59 PM ]

This photo taken on September 27, 2014 shows medical staff carrying the body of an Ebola victim at a clinic in Monrovia, Liberia. (© AFP)

The United Nations (UN)’s health agency says the Ebola epidemic in Liberia has come to an end.

“The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia is over,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement.

The organization praised the West African country for its “monumental” achievement in becoming Liberia Ebola-free.

“Interruption of transmission is a monumental achievement for a country that reported the highest number of deaths in the largest, longest, and most complex outbreak since Ebola first emerged in 1976,” it said.

The WHO added, “It is a tribute to the government and people of Liberia that determination to defeat Ebola never wavered, courage never faltered.”

The virus killed more than 4,700 people in Liberia.

A sign encouraging the observation of hygiene to end the Ebola outbreak is seen in Monrovia, Liberia, May 8, 2015. (© AFP)

During the two months of peak transmission in August and September 2014, “the capital city Monrovia was the setting for some of the most tragic scenes from West Africa’s outbreak: gates locked at overflowing treatment centers, patients dying on the hospital grounds, and bodies that were sometimes not collected for days,” the statement read.

“At one point, virtually no treatment beds for Ebola patients were available anywhere in the country,” it added.

The WHO said that the Ebola epidemic had, however, not been eradicated in the neighboring West African countries of Guinea and Sierra Leone, warning that there was a high risk that infected people could cross into Liberia and spread the disease again.

The UN health organization reported last April that more than 26,000 people had contracted the virus in West Africa since December 2013 until the mentioned month. Out of this number, a total of 10,823 had lost their lives.

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