The announcement that Nigeria is free of Ebola following WHO surveillance, epidemiology, and laboratory testing, is on the WHO website. Senegal has already been declared Ebola-free by WHO.
World Health Organization, WHO will declare the end of the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria on Monday 20 October. We must not forget that Ebola-free does not mean end of Ebola. There is still no active vaccines available. ''For WHO to declare an Ebola outbreak over, a country must pass through 42 days, with active surveillance demonstrably in place, supported by good diagnostic capacity, and with no new cases detected. Active surveillance is essential to detect chains of transmission that might otherwise remain hidden.''
This is a very good news for Nigeria often labelled as for every four cases of Ebola we know of, there might be 16 that we don't. Eight people died out of 20 confirmed Ebola cases in Nigeria, with all infections traced to Liberian Patrick Sawyer, who arrived in Lagos on July 20.
"Nigeria acted quickly and early and on a large scale," John Vertefeuille, from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who is under fire from the US government to contain the virus in America.
"They acted aggressively, especially in terms of contact-tracing."
The Ebola Emergency Operations Centre (EEOC) was launched in Nigeria and the organization prioritised contact-tracing and twice-daily monitoring of those at risk.
In all, 898 people were considered at risk and monitored in Lagos and the oil city of Port Harcourt, where Sawyer traveled after slipping surveillance.
No new cases have been diagnosed in more than a month, and October 1 marked the date at which all of Nigeria’s 898 contacts passed the 21-day incubation period during which Ebola symptoms can present themselves.
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