The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed 8,153 people out of the total
number of 20,656 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, a mortality rate of
39 per cent, even as Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has announced the
reopening of schools in the country from February 2.Disclosing this in a
statement, the World Health Organisation, WHO, revealed that 2,915 deaths have
been reported from Sierra Leone, 3,471 in Liberia and 1,767 in Guinea. The
current outbreak, which began about a year ago, has also claimed more than
dozen lives elsewhere. The development which came as a result of declined in
the number of cases recorded daily has the latest figures showed the infection
rate has dwindled to just three cases a day. Also, the US also plans to
withdraw about half of its 2,400 troops six months after the virus struck,
claiming 3,400 lives. On July 30, 2014, Sirleaf ordered all schools to close
their doors to contain the epidemic. Optimism has been increased by figures
issued by the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (Unmeer). They show the
country had no confirmed Ebola cases on 31 December and just 91 cases in the
past 21 days. This compares starkly with the 979 cases in the past three weeks
in neighbouring Sierra Leone where, Unmeer says, “transmission remains intense”
but the infection rate in Liberia is moving to a national average of just over
three cases per day, it said on its Facebook page on Monday.US Democratic
Senator Chris Coons, who visited the country, said the epidemic had reduced “to
a few embers” and many of the soldiers there are now “bored because they have
accomplished most of their mission. We can’t declare mission accomplished and
withdraw too early here, [but] we can bring home a thousand or more of these
troops now,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation. In another piece of good news for
Liberia, the country’s football federation announced the resumption of
competitive matches. Musa Bility, the president of the Liberian Football
Association, said the ban was lifted “with immediate effect” but he urged
players to keep in mind preventative measures to halt the spread of Ebola. The
incidence of Ebola has been declining in Liberia since mid-November, with
Médecins sans Frontières closing one of its hospitals on 10 December after
recording no new patients in six weeks. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
announced at the weekend that schools would reopen on 2 February but did not
specify whether the measure would apply to the entire education system.
Vanguard (online)
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