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Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that she would not seek an extension to a state of emergency imposed in August over Ebola.
Her announcement on Thursday is a sign of progress in the fight against the disease which has killed more than 2,800 people in Liberia since breaking out in West Africa in March.
“Thus, having consulted relevant stakeholders, the national health team and partners, I have informed the leadership of the National Legislature that I will not seek an extension to the State of Emergency,” Sirleaf told a news briefing in the capital Monrovia.
“We also know that Liberia cannot be declared Ebola free until our neighbours are also Ebola free. This means that we cannot let down our guard nor can we afford to reduce our vigilance,” Sirleaf told a news briefing in Monrovia.
“Notwithstanding these gains, a number of our compatriots are still lying in ETUs [Ebola Treatment Units], hot-spots are springing up in rural areas, and many of our compatriots are still dying of Ebola.
The current outbreak has infected more than 14,000. There are signs that the incidence of new Ebola cases is declining in Guinea and Liberia, though there are still steep increases in Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organisation.
Meanwhile, Mali is rushing to impose tougher measures to contain the spread of Ebola after recording a new case of the disease in the West African nation’s capital, health officials said on Thursday.
The world’s worst epidemic of the haemorrhagic fever on record has killed at least 5,160 people since it erupted in March in West Africa, a region dogged by poverty and poor healthcare. It has ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and spurred a global watch for its spread.
Liberia, the country hardest hit by the outbreak, announced it would not renew a state of emergency, highlighting at least some recent progress in neutralising the virus there.
In Mali, which shares an 800km border with Guinea, a 25-year-old health worker became the country’s second confirmed case of Ebola on Tuesday, although four deaths in Mail have been attributed to the disease.
The nurse died after treating a Muslim Imam from Guinea who suffered from Ebola-like symptoms that were not recognised.
On Thursday a doctor at the same clinic was also revealed to be infected. A woman who was being treated at Bamako’s Gabriel Toure Hospital – the city’s second largest – tested positive as well.
“We tested two cases today. One was negative but the other preliminary test was positive. We’re waiting for the definitive results,” health ministry spokesperson Daou Markatié said. “She had participated in the washing of the imam’s body.”
More than 90 people were quarantined in the capital Bamako after the nurse’s death, and health workers are now seeking to trace an unknown number of contact cases. “The president of the republic has asked the prime minister to look urgently at the entire system put in place to fight Ebola and to strengthen health controls at the different frontier posts,” a government statement said.
But officials said there were no plans to close the border, even though the nurse had been infected by a man who arrived from Guinea.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta urged the World Health Organisation (WHO) and health services in Mali and neighbouring states to set up a permanent information exchange to improve awareness about public health and hygiene.
Fueling hope of progress in containing the disease, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said she would not seek to extend a state of emergency imposed in August.
On Wednesday, the WHO said the Ebola death toll in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had reached 5,147 out of 14,068 cases as of November 9, with 13 more deaths and 30 cases recorded in Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Spain and the United States. It said there was some evidence that case incidence was no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but steep increases persist in Sierra Leone.
At least 421 new infections were reported in Sierra Leone in the week to November 9, especially in the west and north, and the virus is still spreading intensely in Freetown, the capital, as well as in Guinea’s southwest near the Liberian border, the WHO said. – AFP
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