Liberia on Friday commenced a new countdown to declaring itself of Ebola free for a third time, health officials said. The countdown comes after the last two known Ebola cases were released from hospital on Thursday. In recent months, Liberia had been the only country in West Africa with known cases as neighboring Sierra Leone was declared Ebola-free in November while Guinea’s last known case recovered two weeks ago. “There are no cases in the ETUs (Ebola Treatment Units) in the entire Republic of Liberia,” said Tolbert Nyenswah, Head of Liberia’s Ebola response, adding that Ebola safety procedures remained in place.

The two patients released from the Paynesville ETU are the father and younger brother of the presumed index case, a 15-year-old boy named Nathan Gbotoe from a suburb of the capital Monrovia who died from the disease late November. However, new cases could still emerge in Liberia since there are 165 contacts still under quarantine, of which more than 30 are deemed high risk, health officials told newsmen. Nyenswah say the contacts under surveillance have completed 14 of their obligatory 21-day monitoring – a period that corresponds with the typical incubation period of the virus.