Sierra Leone's last Ebola patient discharged

The last known Ebola patient in Sierra Leone, the aunt of a young woman who died of the virus in January, has been cured and discharged, health authorities announced on Tuesday.

The patient, 38, Memunatu Kalokoh, “was discharged on Friday, February 5, in a treatment center in Freetown and was sent back to her village after testing negative to the virus twice,” the Director of Control and disease Prevention at the Ministry of Health, Dr Foday Dafai told the AFP.

“This means that Sierra Leone has started the 42-day countdown,” the country’s health officials announced.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the worst since the identification of the virus 40 years ago in Central Africa, left more than 11,300 dead out of 28,000 reported cases, according to the World Health Organisation.

Guinea, where the outbreak began in December 2013, Liberia and Sierra Leone were the worst affected countries.