DAKAR, Senegal -- When will the world's largest and longest Ebola outbreak end?
The West African nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia both appear to be on a steady path to ending the epidemic -- the wild card is Guinea, where Ebola hasn't burned as hot but remains stubbornly entrenched.
In the year since the first cases were identified in Guinea, Ebola has infected more than 25,000 people, the vast majority in West Africa. Of those, around 10,500 have died.
Liberia's last Ebola patient died March 27; it is now counting down the 42 days it must wait to be declared free of Ebola.
Sierra Leone recorded no new infections Wednesday for the second time; on average, it has logged a handful each day in recent days. There are currently 62 patients in treatment in Sierra Leone, and a recent nationwide lockdown indicated there aren't hordes of hidden Ebola cases.
"The battle to get to zero cases is truly on," Ernest Bai Koroma, Sierra Leone's president, said in a radio address Thursday.
It's more difficult to discern a trend in Guinea -- the World Health Organization has called the picture there mixed after noting signs of improvement last week.
Doctors Without Borders added 10 new beds to its Ebola treatment centre in the capital, Conakry, last week to handle more patients. About half of the Donka centre's 50 beds were full as of Tuesday, according to Raphael Delhalle, the group's field co-ordinator.
The outbreak in Guinea has followed an undulating pattern for months and is likely to continue, Delhalle said.
Even though Ebola has spread longest in Guinea, the country has registered by far the fewest cases. That's primarily because Ebola has yet to explode in a major Guinean city, as it did in the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia, said Dr. Dan Jernigan of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Guinea's president has implemented new measures to fight the outbreak, including mandating safe burials in hot spots and shutting any health centre that finds an Ebola case. Ebola is spread through bodily fluids of the sick and dead; burials and clinics are two major sources of infection.
One measure of whether an outbreak is being brought under control is how many new infections are in people known to have had contact with the sick. That figure is only at about 50 per cent in Guinea, WHO said Wednesday.
WHO said about two-thirds of new cases in Sierra Leone arose in known contacts, a drop from the previous week. Fifteen per cent of Ebola cases are still being confirmed only after death.
