There are currently no Liberians sick with Ebola in that country. The string of six cases, with two fatalities, has at the very least paused. However, more than 120 people who those patients have been in contact with are under surveillance.
The last four patients with Ebola have recovered and will be discharged from the hospital on Monday, according to Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah in an interview with The Associated Press.
However, this pause may not last. At least 42 days (twice the length of time for Ebola symptoms to show up) have to go by before Liberia can declare itself free of Ebola. But Liberia declared the Ebola epidemic over once already to be sadly proven wrong. Seven weeks went by between the last recorded case and the death of a young man in late June in Nedowein, a community southeast of the capitol city of Monrovia. He apparently passed the infection to five more cases, including another death.
The strain of the virus seen in these patients was genetically similar to that found in the same area six months ago, according to the World Health Organization. This means that the virus was probably still in the area and transmitted locally. It was not brought in by a traveler from the neighboring countries of Guinea and Sierra Leone, where the outbreak has not been halted as yet. Ebola virus is usually transmitted through contact with blood, vomit, or other body fluids. However, it can linger in some parts of the body for several weeks after a patient recovers, notably in a man's semen.
As yet, the Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,800 people in Liberia alone, with new cases and deaths still occurring in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The outbreak has led to more than 11,000 deaths as yet.
