FREE TOWN, JANUARY 20, 2015(CISA) – Pujehun district in the southern region of Sierra Leone has gone for 44 days without any new case of the Ebola virus, Sadiq Siilah the chairman of the district council has said.
Records show that since the outbreak occurred in the district on August 8 last year, there had been a total of 31 confirmed Ebola cases and the last case was reported last year on November 26.
“Since then we have been recording zero cases,” said Siilah on Monday January 19.
The announcement is good news coming from a country that has been hit hardest by the Ebola epidemic followed by Liberia and Guinea, reported Sierra Leone Times.
Siilah attributed the success so far to the vigilance of the security sector, which include the police and the military who provided security for the holding center, quarantine homes, checkpoints as well as the border post with neighboring Liberia.
“Each of the intense-transmission countries has sufficient capacity to isolate and treat patients, with more than 2 treatment beds per reported confirmed and probable case,” stated the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a statement.
“However, the uneven geographical distribution of beds and cases, and the under-reporting of cases, means that not all Ebola cases are isolated in several areas,” added WHO.
According to the latest figures from WHO over 21,000 people have been infected and over 8,400 deaths have occurred since the epidemic started with over 3000 of those from Sierra Leone.
Elsewhere, there is also good news from Mali. The African Country was officially declared virus-free, according to what was reported by the local government and the United Nations after no new case was registered for 42 days.
Mali was the sixth West African country hardest hit by the West African Ebola epidemic.
