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https://scmp.com/news/world/article/1876534/sierra-leone-ebola-free-after-18-month-outbreak-killed-almost-4000
World

Sierra Leone is Ebola free after an 18-month outbreak of the fatal virus killed almost 4,000 in the country, WHO declares

People washing their hands with soap and bleach to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone. The west African nation went 42 days without any new infections but should still be cautious as neighbouring Guinea still battling the virus. Photo: AFP

Ebola-ravaged Sierra Leone had beaten an outbreak that killed almost 4,000 of its people and plunged the economy into severe recession, the UN's health agency said yesterday.

"Today, November 7, 2015, the World Health Organisation declares the end of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone," World Health Organisation country representative Anders Nordstrom told a ceremony in the capital Freetown, to prolonged ecstatic cheers after the country's 18-month battle with the disease.

The former British colony recorded about half of the cases in an epidemic that had infected 28,600 people across the three hardest-hit west African nations and claimed 11,300 lives since December 2013.

Experts agree the real death toll is almost certainly significantly higher than the official data, which has been skewed by the under-reporting of deaths in many probable cases.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical staff wearing protective clothing treating the body of an Ebola victim at their facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone last August. Photo: AFP
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical staff wearing protective clothing treating the body of an Ebola victim at their facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone last August. Photo: AFP

The crisis has devastated primary health services and immunisation schemes, with the deaths of 221 medical workers - 5 per cent of frontline doctors and 7 per cent of nurses and midwives.

A country is considered free of human-to-human transmission once two 21-day incubation periods have passed since the last known case tested negative for a second time.

Following some false starts, Sierra Leone's countdown finally began on September 25, three weeks after the WHO had declared neighbouring Liberia - with 4,800 deaths - Ebola-free.

A health worker attends to a patient at the maternity ward in the government hospital in Koidu, eastern Sierra Leone in December 2014. Photo: Reuters
A health worker attends to a patient at the maternity ward in the government hospital in Koidu, eastern Sierra Leone in December 2014. Photo: Reuters

Guinea, where about 2,500 have died, still has a handful of cases. Sierra Leone is heightening security and health screening at their shared border.

Guinea is also monitoring 382 possible contacts of known cases, 141 of them deemed "high risk", according to the WHO.

"Thank God it is all over and we now live in peace," said Mamie Kabia, 25, who helped bury highly infectious bodies round the clock at the peak of the crisis.

Sierra Leone saw its first case 18 months ago, when a woman contracted the virus at the funeral of a healer.

The World Bank estimated Sierra Leone would lose at least US$1.4 billion in forgone economic growth this year leading to an "unprecedented" contraction in gross domestic product of more than 20 per cent.