Health - Liberia

Some of the final cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone were transmitted via unconventional routes, such as semen and breastmilk, according to the largest analysis to date of the tail-end of the epidemic.

An international team of researchers has produced a detailed picture of the latter stages of the outbreak in Sierra Leone, using real-time sequencing of Ebola virus genomes carried out in a temporary laboratory in the country.

 World Health Organization

Monrovia – Liberia’s and Guinea’s last known Ebola patients in a latest flare-up of the disease that hit both countries have now been discharged. All remaining contacts of confirmed cases that were placed under a 3-week period of medical monitoring have been cleared.

Liberia’s Ministry of Health, WHO and partners involved in the response held a ceremony at the Ebola treatment facility in Monrovia to celebrate the recovery and discharge of a 2-year-old boy, the final patient in the flare-up in Liberia. 

His 5-year-old brother recovered a week earlier. On 29 April, the country also began a 42-day period of increased surveillance – amounting to two 21-day incubation cycles of the virus.

Source: World Health Organization - Credit: Michaeleen Doucleff and Alyson Hurt/NPR

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Reduced evolutionary rate in reemerged Ebola virus transmission chains

The West African countries at the center of the epidemic have had flareups even after being declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization.

npr.org - by Michaeleen Doucleff - April 29, 2016

Just when health officials think the Ebola outbreak is over in West Africa, the virus pops up again seemingly out of the blue. It's happened at least five times so far.

Now scientists are starting to figure out why: The virus can lay dormant in a survivor for more than year and then re-emerge to infect others.