Ebola cases continue to fall in Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) update Jan. 28.

Produced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under a very-high magnification, this digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicts a single filamentous Ebola virus particle that had budded from the surface of a VERO cell of the African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line.
Produced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under a very-high magnification, this digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicts a single filamentous Ebola virus particle that had budded from the surface of a VERO cell of the African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line.

For the first time since the week ending 29 June 2014, there have been fewer than 100 new confirmed cases reported in a week in the 3 most-affected countries.

A combined total of 99 confirmed cases were reported from the 3 countries in the week to 25 January: 30 in Guinea, 4 in Liberia, and 65 in Sierra Leone.

Only Guinea recorded more cases in the past week compared to the previous week (30 cases vs 20 cases).

The case fatality rate among hospitalized cases (calculated from all hospitalized cases with a reported definitive outcome) is between 54% and 62% in the 3 intense-transmission countries, with no indication of an improvement over time.

A total of 816 confirmed health worker infections have been reported in the 3 intense-transmission countries; there have been 488 reported deaths.

Neither Guinea nor Sierra Leone reported a health worker infection in the week to 25 January. Liberia reported 2 health worker infections during the same period, compared with 0 cases the previous week.

There have been 22,057 reported confirmed, probable, and suspected cases  of Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone , with 8,795 deaths (outcomes for many cases are unknown).