GUINEA was declared free of Ebola transmission Tuesday after more than 2,500 people died from the virus in the West African nation, leaving Liberia as the only country still counting down the days until the end of the epidemic.

    The announcement made at a ceremony in the capital comes 42 days after the last Ebola patient tested negative for a second time. The country now enters a 90-day period of heightened surveillance, the U.N. World Health Organization said.

    The world’s worst Ebola outbreak began in Gueckedou, eastern Guinea, in December 2013 before spreading to Liberia, Sierra Leone and seven other countries. In all, more than 11,300 people died, almost all in the three worst-affected nations.

    Despite Tuesday’s milestone, people in the capital, Conakry, greeted the declaration with mixed emotions, given the deaths and the damage the virus did to the economy and the country’s health and education sectors.

    About 6,200 children have been left orphaned, said Rene Migliani, from Guinea’s Ebola coordination centre.

    At its height, Ebola sparked fear around the world and governments and businesses took precautions. New cases have dwindled due to successful public health campaigns and the intervention of national and international health workers.

    Governments from as far afield as Cuba, France and the United States sent health workers and equipment to the three countries in an attempt to get a grip on the disease.

    Hundreds of health workers who treated Ebola sufferers were themselves infected and died due to a lack of training and equipment to deal with a disease not previously seen in that part of West Africa.

    There were more than 3,800 cases in Guinea out of more than 28,600 cases globally, according to WHO.

    (SD-Agencies)