CDCIt’s been 42 days since the last person confirmed to have Ebola in Guinea tested negative for a second time, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today, declaring the West African nation to now be free of Ebola transmissions.
“This is the first time that all three countries—Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone—have stopped the original chains of transmission that were responsible for starting this devastating outbreak two years ago,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said in the statement.
Like Liberia and Sierra Leone, Guinea has entered a 90-day surveillance period. “The coming months will be absolutely critical,” Bruce Aylward, WHO’s special representative of the director-general for the Ebola response, said in the press release. “The time-limited persistence of virus in survivors which may give rise to new Ebola flares in 2016 makes it imperative that partners continue to support these countries. WHO will maintain surveillance and outbreak response teams in the three countries through 2016.”
