In May, Liberia was declared free of Ebola, but there has been another death due to the virulent disease. Tests on the virus in this new case found that it is closely related to an earlier strain seen in Liberia, according to the World Health Organization. This finding may mean that Ebola was never completely eliminated from the country.
The person who died was a 17-year-old boy named Abraham Memaigar. How he caught the virus has baffled health officials since he lived far from regions with Ebola and was also far from Liberia's borders with Guinea and Sierra Leone, which still have active Ebola epidemics. He was not known to have been in contact with any travelers. Either he caught the virus from a survivor of Ebola or there was some other type of transmission.
Ebola is thought to be able to survive for no more than 21 days in most body fluids such as blood and vomit. However, it can be found for longer than that in semen and in tissues such as the eye. Men who survive Ebola are told to refrain from sexual intercourse for several months because the virus persists in semen.
Liberia is the West African country that was hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak. Of the more than 10,000 people who died in Africa of Ebola, more than 4,200 were Liberians. Liberia was declared free of Ebola in May. Sierra Leone was on the verge of being declared free of Ebola, but the virus still persists there.
The outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has caused world health experts to re-evaluate how best to handle epidemics. There were delays in recognizing the seriousness of the outbreak and in dealing with it.