Sierra Leone releases its last known Ebola patient

1Adama Sankoh, 40, centre, who contracted Ebola after her son died from the disease late last month stands with health officials the moment after she was discharge from Mateneh Ebola treatment center outskirt of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Monday, Aug. 24, 2015, Health authorities in Sierra Leone released the country's last known Ebola patient from the hospital on Monday, a milestone that allows the nation to begin a 42-day countdown to being declared free of the virus that has killed nearly 4,000 people here.
2Adama Sankoh, 40, centre, who contracted Ebola after her son died...
3In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015, a man takes checks people's temperature and helps to wash their hands as they leave Ebola quarantine, after Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma cut a tape to release the quarantine in the village of Massessehbeh on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
4Five months after a man traveled to his home village for festivities marking the end of Ramadan, and died suddenly from Ebola, but now President Koroma came to cut down the fencing to mark the formal end of Sierra Leone's largest remaining Ebola quarantine.
5In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015, a man takes checks...
6In this photo taken Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015, a billboard advises people how to keep free of Ebola, in a shanty town on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, as people in the nearby village of Massessehbeh are finally released from Ebola quarantine, after Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma cut a tape to release the quarantine in the village.
7In this photo taken Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015, a billboard advises...
8In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, people wait to be released from Ebola quarantine by Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma in the village of Massessehbeh on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
9In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, people wait to be...
10In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, centre, cuts a tape to release people from quarantine in the village of Massessehbeh on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
11In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, Sierra Leone President...
12MATENEH, Sierra Leone (AP) - Health authorities in Sierra Leone released the country's last known Ebola patient from a hospital on Monday, a milestone that allows the nation to begin a 42-day countdown to being declared free of the virus that has killed nearly 4,000 people here.
13President Ernest Bai Koroma presented a certificate of discharge to Adama Sankoh, 40, who contracted Ebola after her son died from the disease late last month.
14"The Ebola fight is not yet over - go and tell members of your community that," the president said when presenting the certificate to the woman.
15"Go back to your community and continue to live life as you used to. "
16Sankoh, whose 23-year-old son contracted Ebola in the capital, Freetown, before traveling to his home village, thanked everyone who provided her care during her illness.
17She also vowed to be the last person infected in Sierra Leone with the virus.
18"Although my child died of Ebola I am very happy that I have survived today," she said upon leaving the Ebola treatment center in Mateneh village on the outskirts of Makeni, the president's hometown.
19If Sierra Leone is declared free of transmission of the Ebola virus it would leave just one country with the disease - Guinea - after an epidemic that has killed more than 11,200 people since late 2013.
20But first Sierra Leone must go 42 days - equal to two incubation periods of 21 days - without another Ebola case in order for the World Health Organization to make such a declaration.