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Liberia Reports First New Ebola Case in Weeks


Health workers walk inside a new graveyard as they move bury people suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, Wednesday, March 11, 2015. Liberians held a church service Wednesday for families who lost members to Ebola
Health workers walk inside a new graveyard as they move bury people suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, Wednesday, March 11, 2015. Liberians held a church service Wednesday for families who lost members to Ebola

Officials in Liberia have reported the country's first new case of Ebola in weeks, ending hopes that the nation had beaten the deadly virus.

Officials say the new patient has been transferred to an Ebola treatment center in the capital, Monrovia.

Liberian health workers had discharged their last Ebola patient on March 5, raising hopes that the country could soon be declared Ebola-free.

Countries must wait 42 days from when the last patient tests negative for the virus — twice the length of the virus' incubation period — before the country can be declared free of Ebola.

Liberia has seen the most deaths in the Ebola outbreak, which is centered in West Africa. More than 10,000 people have been killed by the disease, almost all of them in the West African nations of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

At least 24,340 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began in December 2013.

The disease is transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

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