Ebola outbreak that killed 12 in Guinea declared over by WHO

By Staff Reuters

Posted June 19, 2021 6:59 am EST

1 min read

This article is more than 3 years old and some information may not be up to date.

FILE-Int this Feb. 7, 2018 file photo Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), answers questions of the journalists about his first seven months in office and outlines the organization's priorities for the next five years, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The World Health Organization‚Äôs director-general has faced many challenges during the coronavirus pandemic: racial slurs, death threats, social media caricatures ‚Äî he was once depicted as a ventriloquist‚Äôs dummy in the hands of Chinese President Xi Jinping ‚Äî and U.S. funding cuts. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP).

An Ebola outbreak which started in Guinea in February, infecting 16 people and killing 12, has been declared over, the health ministry and the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

Story continues below advertisement

Health authorities were able to move swiftly to tackle the resurgence of the virus, which causes severe bleeding and organ failure and is spread through contact with body fluids, after lessons learned from previous outbreaks in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Based on the lessons learned from the 2014–16 outbreak and through rapid, coordinated response efforts… Guinea managed to control the outbreak and prevent its spread beyond its borders,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

The Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016 killed 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.