世界衛生組織宣佈利比里亞的埃博拉疫情結束

The World Health Organization has announced an end to the Ebola virus outbreak in Liberia, meaning all three countries at the epicenter of the west African outbreak are now considered Ebola-free.

The WHO announcement came Thursday after 42 days without a new reported case in Liberia. When announcing the milestone, the WHO cautioned that more small outbreaks are expected and called for continued strong surveillance to keep the disease at bay.

The WHO representative in Liberia, Alex Gasasira, pledged that the organization will continue to support Liberia in its effort to prevent, detect, and respond to any new Ebola cases.

This is the third time Liberia has been declared Ebola-free. The first declaration came in May 2015, but the disease recurred twice since then, with the latest outbreak in November.

This is the first time all three nations that hosted the outbreak -- Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone -- have all been Ebola-free at the same time. Sierra Leone was declared Ebola-free on November 7 and Guinea on December 29.

The Ebola epidemic in west Africa took 11,000 lives and infected more than 28,500 people.世界衛生組織宣佈利比里亞的埃博拉疫情結束，這就意味着西非埃博拉疫情的三個核心國家至此已全部宣告疫情結束。

世界衛生組織星期四做出了上述宣佈。在此之前的42天裏，利比里亞沒有報告任何新病例。在做出這一里程碑式的宣告之際，世衛組織告誡說，預計還會有小範圍的疫情出現，並呼籲繼續保持密切監控，謹防疫情擴散。

世衛組織駐利比里亞代表加薩西拉表示，世衛組織將繼續支持利比里亞預防、追蹤、應對新的埃博拉病例。

這是利比里亞第三次宣佈埃博拉疫情結束。第一次是在去年5月，但隨後又兩次出現新疫情。最近一輪疫情是去年11月出現的。

這是埃博拉疫情突發的三個國家，利比里亞、幾內亞和塞拉利昂首次同時處於疫情結束狀態。塞拉利昂和幾內亞分別於去年11月7日和12月9日宣佈疫情結束。

西非的埃博拉疫情共造成11000人死亡，28500多人感染。