FREETOWN – The discharge of the last Ebola patient from Sierra Leone’s Kailahun district, has further heightened hopes that the increase in incidence of the disease in the country is slowing down.
The District Medical Officer of Kailahun, James Squire, on Monday announced the discharge of the last Ebola patient from the District’s case management centre.
“In more good news from Sierra Leone, the Kailahun district has recorded zero infection for several weeks,’’ Squire declared.
Sierra Leone has recorded the highest cases of Ebola out of the three most-affected countries that also included Liberia and Guinea, where the current outbreak originated in January 2014.
According to the latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Sierra Leone has recorded 8,356 cases, followed by Liberia with 7,797 and Guinea with 2,416.
However, Liberia has recorded the highest number of deaths, at 3,290, followed by Sierra Leone at 2,085 and Guinea at 1,525.
Altogether, the disease has claimed 6,915 lives in the three countries as well as in Mali, Nigeria and the U.S.
Earlier this month, the WHO announced ‘“an ominous spike’’’ in Ebola cases from the remote diamond district of Kono in eastern Sierra Leone, bordering Guinea.
However, the global health body joined forces with the U.S. Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Sierra Leone’s National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) and Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) to sound the alarm.
It added that there was the need to rally all-comers in a massive build up to contain this burgeoning Ebola outbreak.
“Our team met heroic doctors and nurses at their wits end, exhausted burial teams and lab techs.
“All doing the best they could, but they simply ran out of resources and were overrun with gravely ill people,” Dr Olu Olushayo, WHO National Coordinator, Ebola Epidemic Response, said. (PANA/NAN)
Good news from Ebola-gripped Sierra Leone
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