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.
This surely is a relief for Nigerians and the world at large...
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