A woman who
was Liberia's sole remaining known Ebola patient has died at a treatment centre
in the capital, said Francis Ketteh, acting head of the country's Ebola
response team.
The case was
Liberia's first in weeks and it set back efforts to halt a virus that has
killed more than 10,000 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Authorities
say the woman, who died in Monrovia on Friday, may have contracted Ebola
through sex with a survivor.
"We
have been able to trace the people she came in contact with," Ketteh said.
"We call on everyone to follow the Ebola preventative measures."
Before the
woman fell ill, the Liberian government had hoped to declare the country
Ebola-free next month, 42 days after the last patient tested negative for a
second time, which would mark double the length of the virus's incubation
period.
Health
officials have warned the general population that even after areas are declared
free of the disease, new cases are possible through sexual transmission.
Liberia remains vulnerable to cases imported from Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Starting on
Friday, Sierra Leone's six million people were being confinrd to their for three
days as nation resorted again to a sweeping shutdown in a final push to stamp
out Ebola. Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma vowed to do "whatever
it takes" to get to zero cases.
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