Health officials declare that there has been a death in Sierra Leone from the Ebola virus just hours after the World Health Organization declared the West African outbreak to be over.
The country was said to be clear of the virus on the 7th of November 2015. The region as a whole was cleared Ebola-free this past Thursday after Liberia was found to have rid itself of the virus. It is not clear whether or not the boy who died past before or after the clearance, but what is certain is that it was Ebola that killed him. Nearly 4,000 people have died from Ebola in Sierra Leone since December 2013. 11,000 people have died due to the virus in the region over the past 2 years. Although the West Africa region was declared free of Ebola, the WHO warned the public of the possibility of small outbreaks and flare-ups of the virus. A country is considered completely free of human-to-human transmission once two 21-day incubation periods have passed since the last known case tested negative for the second time. This means that even though West Africa has been cleared, there is a still 21 days that someone can contract the disease, which is possibly what happened in this case.
