There are no cases of Ebola in the country, said Dr. Mahmoud Nabavi, deputy head of communicable diseases management center at the health ministry, categorically denying the rumors on social media that Ebola had been reported in some cities, including Tabriz. “As influenza is widespread in Tabriz, a few infected people with ‘protective clothing’ are mistaken for Ebola victims by ignorant people,” Alef News Agency quoted him as saying.
He also allayed rumors that fruits have been imported from Ebola-affected nations and said “It is completely false. Ebola is very unlikely to enter the country. The epidemic is abating all over the world and there is no travel and trade between Iran and the affected countries.”
Due to the cold season, influenza is widespread in the country, and people with weakened immune system are prone to diseases such as flu and pneumonia which can even lead to death in some cases.
Epidemic Abating
Many schools in Liberia have reopened, six months after they were closed to curb the spread of Ebola. Students welcomed the move, but some raised fears that the deadly disease had not yet been totally eradicated.
Staff at school gates were equipped with thermometers to take students’ temperatures and buckets of chlorinated water for them to wash their hands. Only three new confirmed cases were reported in Liberia in the week leading to February 8, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Liberia was one of three West African states (Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone) worst affected by the Ebola outbreak, identified in March 2013.
The leaders of the three states - Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Guinea’s Alpha Conde and Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma - pledged at a meeting in Guinea’s capital Conakry on Sunday to achieve zero Ebola infections within 60 days.
Guinea reopened its schools a month ago and Sierra Leone plans to do so at the end of March.
More than 9,000 people have been killed by the virus, but there has been a general decline in the number of cases in recent weeks.
