VENTURE AFRICA – It is official. Liberia is now free of the deadly Ebola epidemic, the World Health Organisation (WHO), said at the weekend. This marks the close of the nationwide plague which claimed about 400 new sufferers a week at its height and killed more than 9000 people.

WHO said Liberia had gone 42 days since the funeral of its last victim without finding a new case. Liberia is among three West African countries mostly hit by the biggest epidemic of the disease since the first case was reported in 1976.

The health body said though Liberia ended the spreading of the sickness within its own borders, the disease was prevalent in other parts of West Africa, with Guinea and Sierra Leone still reporting cases.

Ebola destroyed the economies of these countries. And these countries were already poor event before the outbreak of the deadly disease.

In this regard, the World Bank released figures which show that gross domestic product (GDP) losses for Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in 2015 to be $2.2 billion, including $240 million for Liberia, $535 million for Guinea and $1.4 billion for Sierra Leone.

In Liberia, the spreading of the deadly disease was most severe in the capital, Monrovia. At some point in the past couple of months, Liberia had no treatment beds for Ebola sufferers, according to WHO.