The good news coming out of West Africa is that after a year and a half, we are seeing dramatically lower new cases, in fact, last week marked a third consecutive decline in weekly case incidence.

Image/CDC
Image/CDC

Officials with the World Health Organization (WHO) report only two cases during the past week (one each in Sierra Leone and Guinea), making it the lowest weekly total to have been reported since March 2014.

In addition, for the first time in 3 weeks, no health worker infections were reported from any of the affected countries.

There have been a total of 880 confirmed health worker infections reported from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone since the start of the outbreak, with 512 reported deaths.

However, health officials remind us that there remains a significant risk of further transmission and an increase in case incidence in the near and medium term unless resources are maintained.

There have been a total of 27,862 reported confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone up to 2 August, with 11,281 reported deaths.

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