The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Guinea free of Ebola, two years after the epidemic began in the country.
Guineans are expected to celebrate the landmark with concerts and fireworks.
Ebola killed more than 2,500 people in Guinea and a further 9,000 in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola in November, but new cases have emerged in Liberia, which had been declared Ebola-free in September.
A country is considered free of human-to-human transmission once two 21-day incubation periods have passed since the last known case tested negative for a second time.
Photo WHO
Local health workers echoed a warning from medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres that vigilance was still vital despite the mood of celebration.
“We have to be very careful, because even if open transmission has been stopped, the disease has not been totally defeated,” said Alpha Seny Souhmah, a Guinean health worker and Ebola survivor.
According to the UN, 6,220 Guinean children have lost one or both parents to Ebola.
More than 100 health workers also lost their lives in the fight against the disease.
Many survivors still live in fear of the stigma and long-term side effects associated with the virus.
Guinea’s government has blamed the virus for poor economic performance and says it has also caused people to distrust the country’s health services.
President Alpha Conde has doubled the health budget since winning re-election in October 2015.
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone recorded their first week with no new cases of Ebola since the outbreak began in March 2014.
The Ebola outbreak has so far killed more than 11,000 people in the three West African countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
New Ebola cases have fallen sharply in 2015, but the WHO has warned that the disease could break out again.
The epidemic is the worst known occurrence of Ebola in history.
More than 500 people believed to have had dangerous contact with an Ebola patient remain under follow-up in Guinea, the WHO said in a report.
The health agency also said several “high-risk” people linked to recent patients in Guinea and Sierra Leone had been lost track of.
Liberia has already been declared free of the disease after 42 days without a new case. It is the second time the country received the declaration, following a flare-up in June.
Sierra Leone released its last known Ebola patients on September 28 and must now wait to be declared free of the disease.
Guinea’s most recent cases were recorded on September 27.
Liberia is Ebola-free, the World Health Organization (WHO) announces confirming the African country has had no new cases in 42 days.
More than 4,700 deaths from Ebola have been recorded in Liberia, more than in any other affected country.
Neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone continue to fight the outbreak.
Ebola disease has claimed over 11,000 lives across the region since last year.
The WHO regards a country Ebola-free after a 42-day period without a new case – twice the maximum incubation period.
The last confirmed death in Liberia was on March 27.
On May 9, the WHO said in a statement: “The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia is over.”
According to WHO officials, Ebola was eventually conquered in Liberia through a collective. Care centers and hand washing stations were set up to try to halt the disease, which spreads through contact with sick people.
Billboards went up with slogans such as “Ebola is real”, “wash your hands and don’t touch” and “don’t be the next victim”.
Liberia lost around 250,000 lives in a civil war ending in 2005.
Although Liberia has now been declared Ebola-free, correspondents say the outbreak will have a long-term impact on Liberia’s fragile economy.
The current Ebola outbreak is the deadliest in history. It initially centered on Guinea’s remote south-eastern region of Nzerekore in early 2014, and later spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone authorities have imposed a three-day lockdown to curb the spread of Ebola, with the entire population ordered to stay at home.
There is a two-hour exemption on Friday to allow Muslim prayers and a 5-hour window for Christians on Sunday.
Volunteers are going door-to-door, looking for people with signs of the disease and reminding others how to stay safe.
Dozens of new cases are still being reported in Sierra Leone every week.
However, the three West African countries worst affected by Ebola – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – have seen a steep reduction in infections in recent weeks.
This lockdown comes amidst some rare good news. According to official figures from the World Health Organization, there were just 33 new confirmed cases last week – the lowest number since June 2014.
With these falling figures there is danger of growing complacency, the government says.
This is one of the main reasons behind the lockdown – volunteers will remind people how to protect themselves against a virus that is still a real threat.
They will focus their efforts on northern and western areas where some infections still come as a surprise to officials – 16% of cases last week were not known Ebola contacts.
Experts have criticized previous stay-at-homes as too heavy-handed and top-down in their approach. Concerns were raised that some people did not have access to food.
The hope is, a year after the outbreak was declared, such logistical problems have been ironed out and that this measure will bring the country closer to its goal of zero Ebola infections by April 2015 – an ambitious target that is just two weeks away.
Ebola experimental vaccine first large-scale trial is due to begin in Liberia.
The potentially preventative medicine was taken under strict security to a secret location in the West African country.
Scientists aim to immunize 30,000 volunteers, including front-line health workers.
More than 8,500 people have died in the Ebola outbreak, the vast majority in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The total number of reported cases is more than 21,000. In Liberia alone, more than 3,600 people have died from the disease.
The trial beginning on February 2 will involve injecting a small amount of the strain of the Ebola virus into 12 volunteers in order to trick the body into producing an immune response.
However, it is not yet clear whether this will really offer protection against the disease.
Community nurses are being trained in how to monitor volunteers in the months after they have had their injections.
In the meantime, parts of the largest Ebola treatment centre in the world, on the edge of Monrovia, are being knocked down.
The number of Ebola cases in Liberia has been steadily decreasing – in recent months, there have only been five confirmed cases across the country.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the epidemic has entered a “second phase” with the focus shifting to ending the epidemic.
The survival rate of the current Ebola outbreak is around 40%.
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