Nigeria and Senegal may be Ebola free, WHO says

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Nigeria and Senegal could be declared Ebola-free within just days, as the two countries near the 42-day period without any new cases.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "If the active surveillance for new cases that is currently in place continues, and no new cases are detected, WHO will declare the end of the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Senegal on Friday 17 October," the WHO said in a statement on October 14.

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Nigeria's Ebola-free date is October 20.

Senegal had Ebola confirmed patient, but he recovered and had not infected anyone else.

Nigeria had one traveler from Liberia who triggered an Ebola outbreak which killed eight people.

But the WHO is far less optimistic about the ongoing outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The statement said that "new cases continue to explode in areas that looked like they were coming under control."

"An unusual characteristic of this epidemic is a persistent cyclical pattern of gradual dips in the number of new cases, followed by sudden flare-ups."

The WHO says that the 42 day wait-twice the accepted maximum incubation period of Ebola-would give them sufficient confidence to declare the outbreak over. In 95% of cases, the incubation period was between one and 21 days, while in 98% of all cases, the incubation period was no longer than 42 days.

Ebola can remain for as many as 90 days in the semen of an infected man.

The disease has spread outside of Africa in two countries, Spain and the United States, both where nurses treating other infected people were also infected.

The WHO also stated that it was worried by reports from other countries, that reported that possible Ebola cases had been declared negative within hours.

"Such rapid determination of infection status is impossible, casting grave doubts on some of the official information that is being communicated to the public and the media," it said.

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