The World Health Organization (WHO)
is hoping to announce later on this week that Nigeria and Senegal are free of
Ebola after 42 days with no infections.
The 42 days is the standard period
for declaring an outbreak over, twice the maximum 21-day incubation period of
the virus.
According to a statement signed by
the Director of Information in the Ministry of Health, Mrs.
Ayotunde Adesugba, WHO will soon make the official declaration after Nigeria
successfully curbed the virus which was imported into the country by
Liberia-American, Patrick Sawyer, in July. The country recorded seven deaths in
the process.
However, one of the discoverers of
the deadly virus said on Tuesday that sex could keep the Ebola epidemic alive
even after the World Health Organization (WHO) declares an area free of the
disease.
'In a convalescent male, the virus can persist in semen for
at least 70 days; one study suggests persistence for more than 90 days,' the
WHO said in an information note on Monday.
'Certainly, the advice has to be for survivors to use a
condom, to not have unprotected sex, for 90 days,' said Peter Piot, a professor
at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a discoverer of Ebola
in 1976.
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