| 1 | In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, people celebrate being released from Ebola quarantine in the village of Massessehbeh on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone. |
| 2 | The African nation released its last known Ebola patient from hospital Monday, August 24, 2015. |
| 3 | MATENEH, Sierra Leone -- 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. |
| 4 | President 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. |
| 5 | "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. |
| 6 | "Go back to your community and continue to live life as you used to. " |
| 7 | Sankoh, whose 23-year-old son contracted Ebola in the capital of Freetown before travelling to his home village, thanked everyone who provided her care during her illness. |
| 8 | She also vowed to be the last person infected in Sierra Leone with the virus. |
| 9 | "Although my child died of Ebola I am very happy that I have survived today," she said upon leaving the Ebola treatment centre in Mateneh village on the outskirts of Makeni, the president's hometown. |
| 10 | If 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. |
| 11 | But 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. |