Baku-APA. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday declared Nigeria free of the Ebola virus after the country underwent two incubation periods of 21 days each without the appearance of any new cases, APA reports quoting AA.
"After the 42-day follow-up period and confirmation that there are no new cases, the WHO hereby officially declares Nigeria Ebola-free," Ruiz Vaz, WHO country representative in Nigeria, told a news briefing in capital Abuja.
Last week, Vaz had said that Nigeria would have to wait until October 20 before it obtained a clean bill of health.
"The virus is gone [from Nigeria] for now," he told reporters on Monday. "The outbreak in Nigeria has been defeated."
In recent months, Ebola – a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure – has killed at least 4,546 people in the three West African states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the WHO.
Nigeria, for its part, also in West Africa, had registered eight Ebola deaths out of a total of 19 reported infections.
Hundreds of Nigerians were placed under observation due to suspected contact with infected people before testing negative for the virus.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, recorded its first Ebola case on July 20 after Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian diplomat, flew into the country from Monrovia. He died in a Lagos hospital on July 24.
In a bid to curb the spread of the virus, Nigeria had declared a state of national emergency.
A tropical fever that first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ebola can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.
It can also reportedly spread through contact with the body fluids of infected persons or of those who have succumbed to the virus.
-Success story-
The WHO, meanwhile, commended Nigeria for its efforts to curb Ebola.
"Federal and state governments in Nigeria provided ample financial and material resources, as well as well-trained and experienced national staff," the organization said in a statement.
"Isolation wards were immediately constructed, as were designated Ebola-treatment facilities, though more slowly," the WHO added.
Unlike the situation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the health organization noted, all identified contacts had been physically monitored on a daily basis for 21 days.
"The few contacts who attempted to escape the monitoring system were all diligently tracked using special intervention teams and returned to medical observation to complete the requisite monitoring period of 21 days," the WHO asserted.
Vaz, the WHO's country representative, lauded Nigeria's experience as "a spectacular success story that shows that Ebola can be contained."
This, he said, could help other countries concerned by the threat of Ebola and eager to improve their contingency plans.
"The war will only end when [all of] West Africa is declared free [of Ebola]," Vaz said.
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