Liberia had on two prior occasions declared itself free of Ebola, in May and in the month of September of the year 2015, however, fresh cases of the virus had appeared soon after the declaration.
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The woman, who was from the Northern Kambia District, went to the Northern Tonkolili District for medical treatment, he said, according to the AP. Goals are to assess how the Sierra Leone woman contracted her infection and to trace her contacts.
Besides safe burials, another key response step in the outbreak region has been to test for Ebola in all people who die as a means of identifying any unknown cases or transmission chains.
The World Bank estimates the economic damage of the outbreak, which devastated the mining, agriculture and tourism industries in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, at $2.2 billion over 2014-15.
“Our level of preparedness remains high as we did not stand down or dismantle any of the structures that we had used to fight the virus before”. Today’s announcement comes 42 days – two 21-day incubation cycles of the virus – after the last confirmed patient in Liberia tested negative for the disease twice.
Although Ebola’s epidemic phase appears over, isolated cases are widely expected.
The WHO warned of potential flare-ups as survivors can carry the virus for months.
But WHO also said Thursday that the danger was not over, especially since the virus has been shown to persist in the body fluids of some survivors for up to a year after their recovery.
World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said: “This really reflects what we have been saying yesterday … that there is a risk, and this outbreak is in a critical phase right now where we are moving from case management to management of risk”. Guinea was declared Ebola-free toward the end of December.
Given the fact that the outbreak infected almost 29,000 people and killed 11,315, the odds are good that cases will emerge after the 42 day period is passed.
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“WHO stresses ongoing risk of re-emergence of #Ebola in West Africa throughout 2016 due to persistence of the virus among survivors”. The WHO is investigating how the case originated, people who may have been in contact with the patient, and how to prevent more cases in the future.
