It’s been 42 days since the last new case of Ebola in Nigeria and the World Health Organization were poised to declare the country free of Ebola today, a containment victory in an outbreak that has stymied other countries’ response efforts.
The milestone was set for 9 a.m. local time or 4 a.m., E.T., 42 days since the last new case. The outbreak has killed more than 4,500 in West Africa is remains unchecked in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, so Nigeria is by no means immune to another outbreak.
“It’s possible to control Ebola. It’s possible to defeat Ebola. We’ve seen it here in Nigeria,” Nigerian Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu told TIME. “If any cases emerge in the future, it will be considered—by international standards—a separate outbreak. If that happens, Nigeria will be ready and able to confront it exactly as we have done with this outbreak.”
For the WHO to declare Nigeria’s Ebola-free, the country had to make it 42 days with no new cases (double the incubation period), verify that it actively sought out all possible contacts, and show negative test results for any suspected cases.
Nigeria had 20 cases of Ebola after a Liberian-American man named Patrick Sawyer flew into Lagos collapsed at the airport. Health care workers treating Sawyer were infected, and as it spread it ultimately killed eight people, a low number next to the thousands of cases and deaths in other countries. Nigeria’s health system is considered more robust, but there was significant concern from experts that a case would pop up in one of the country’s dense-populated slums and catch fire. Nigeria will join Senegal, declared Ebola free on Friday
