The World Health Organization has ended the public health emergency for the Ebola virus, despite flare-ups in several West African countries.
The WHO announced that a panel of experts decided on Tuesday to rescind the declaration made in 2014 that the Ebola outbreak is a public health emergency. The three West African countries hit hardest by the outbreak — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — have been Ebola-free for 42 days. Also, an additional 90 days of an enhanced surveillance period have gone by since the last case linked to the original chain of transmission.
The panel said, though, that flare-ups in those countries are still occurring.
“New clusters of Ebola cases continue to occur due to reintroductions of the virus as it is cleared from the survivor population, though at decreasing frequency,” the WHO said.
The WHO said 12 such clusters have been reported, with the latest last week in Guinea.
The committee found that Ebola transmission in West Africa is no longer “an extraordinary event.” It added that the risk of international transmission is low and countries have the “capacity to respond rapidly to new virus emergencies.”
After the outbreak started in 2013, a group of experts criticized the WHO for being too slow to address the outbreak and to get outside help and support from various countries.
The outbreak killed more than 11,000 people, primarily in West Africa.
