Liberia is free of Ebola, says World Health Organization

Doug Stanglin | USA TODAY

The World Health Organization declared Saturday that Liberia's devastating 14-month Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 4,700 people, is over in the West African country.

WHO said it has been 42 days since the last confirmed Ebola victim in Liberia was buried. That is twice the 21-day incubation period for the disease to emerge in an infected individual.

A national ceremony is planned for Monday.

Outbreaks persist, however, in neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone, WHO cautioned, noting that this reality creates "a high risk that infected people may cross into Liberia over the region's exceptionally porous borders."

WHO's latest situation report showed that Guinea and Sierra Leone each recorded nine cases for the week ending May 3.

WHO has recorded more than 4,700 Ebola deaths in Liberia, a country of more than 4 million people. There have been more than 11,000 deaths in West Africa.

"We're proud of what we collectively managed to do but we need to remain vigilant," said Peter Jan Graaff, the United Nations secretary-general's acting special representative and head of the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER). "The virus is not yet out of the region and as long as the virus is in the region we're still all of us potentially at risk."

On Saturday, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf toured health centers in Monrovia, embracing and taking group photos with health workers. She was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Deborah Malac, the Associated Press reported.

At the peak of the outbreak, Liberia was reporting 300 to 400 new cases every week, marking the highest number of deaths "in the largest, longest and most complex outbreak since Ebola first emerged in 1976," WHO said.

At the height of the crisis, flights were canceled, fuel and food supplies ran low, schools, business, markets, borders and most health facilities were shuttered.

"Fear and uncertainty about the future, for families, communities, and the country and its economy, dominated the national mood," WHO said in declaring Liberia Ebola free. It said the transition to Ebola-free status was a "monumental achievement."

Tolbert Nyenswah, who led Liberia's much-criticized response to the disease, said Thursday that finally ridding the country of Ebola was vindication for leadership that had taken such a beating during the darkest hours of the epidemic, when critics complained about slow steps taken to halt the spread of the deadly virus. "Today, the same people (critics) are using us as a success story," Nyenswah said.

In Washington, the White House on Saturday congratulated Liberia on the achievement, but cautioned that "(we) must not let down our guard until the entire region reaches and stays at zero Ebola cases."

The U.S. military, which was quick to respond to the crisis, built 11 clinics across Liberia, many by contract, and trained 1,500 health workers. Yet by the time the work was completed in late December, the disease was on the decline. Last month, The New York Times reported that only 28 Ebola patients were treated at clinics built by the U.S. military.

Contributing: Samwar Fallah and Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY