Liberia was declared free from Ebola by the government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 9th May, 2015 after 42 days without a new case of the virus, which killed more than 4,700 people there during a year-long epidemic.
However, celebrations were muted and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) urged vigilance until the worst outbreak of the disease ever recorded was also extinguished in neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, reports Reuters Health.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who toured Ebola treatment units in the capital Monrovia, said that, while Liberia could take pride in winning the battle against the disease, work was not finished. "At times when you are at your worst, it is when you become your best. That was what happened to us," she said during a speech at the country's incident management center. "The task is not yet over … The challenge is that we stay at zero."
The report said Liberia was recording hundreds of new cases a week at the peak of the outbreak between August and October, causing international alarm. The US sent in hundreds of soldiers to help build treatment clinics in a country, a move seen as a game changer in the battle to stem the disease.
Also critical in Liberia was the government's national awareness campaign to educate Liberians on how to protect themselves from Ebola. MSF said that Liberia's completion of the WHO's benchmark for the end of an Ebola outbreak – 42 days without a new case, marking twice the maximum incubation period of the virus – should not lead to complacency. Mariateresa Cacciapuoti, MSF's head of mission in Liberia urged Liberia to step up cross-border surveillance to prevent Ebola slipping back into the country.
International aid organisations were forced to step in as the Ebola outbreak ravaged the region's poorly equipped and understaffed healthcare systems. According to the WHO, a total of 868 health workers have caught the virus in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone since the start of the outbreak, of whom 507 died.
[link url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/10/us-health-ebola-liberia-idUSKBN0NT28J20150510"]Full Reuters Health report[/link]