audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - Fewer than 100 new Ebola cases have been diagnosed in the last week of counting, the World Health Organization says. The response to the epidemic has now moved to a second phase, as the focus shifts from slowing transmission to ending the epidemic. To achieve this goal as quickly as possible, efforts have moved from rapidly building infrastructure to ensuring that capacity for case finding, case management, safe burials, and community engagement is used as effectively as possible. The average ebola fatality rate is around 50% climbing as high as 90% in past outbreaks. The first EVD outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests, but the most recent outbreak in west Africa has involved major urban as well as rural areas. For the first time since the week ending 29 June, 2014, there have been fewer than 100 new confirmed cases reported in a week in the 3 most-affected countries. A combined total of 99 confirmed cases were reported in the week to 25 January: 30 in Guinea, 4 in Liberia, and 65 in Sierra Leone.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - The Red Cross burial team collects the bodies of dead Ebola victims for burial.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - RACHEL HARIMAN, 30, lies on the floor in her one-room home. She is dead from Ebola. Her body is sprayed with chlorine. Then the burial team puts her body in a white body bag. The sprayer follows the carriers and sprays the ground all the way to the truck that collects the dead bodies.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - The burial team of the Red Cross consists of young men and women. For 80 US Dollars a month they do the job nobody wants to do - they collect the suspected dead victims of Ebola. They all carry a protective suit, double gloves, respirator protection and boots. 'I am not afraid' says 25-year-old Thomas Freeman.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - The Red Cross burial team carries the coffin of Ebola victim Augustin in the slum of Crab Hole. Children play along the way and nobody takes any notice of the burial procession.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - The Red Cross burial team collects the bodies of dead Ebola victims for burial.
© Niclas Hammarstrom/Aftonbladet/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press
Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - The Red Cross burial team collects the bodies of dead Ebola victims for burial. Relatives and neighbors sing a hymn to honor the dead person.
© Niclas Hammarstrom/Aftonbladet/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press
Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - During a Funeral for an Ebola victim, the burial team buries their protective clothes with the coffin. The ceremony is over in ten minutes.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Banjor, Liberia - FATOU, 5, can't hold back her tears. She lost both her parents to Ebola. Now she lives togheter with 45 other orphans and ten adults - the only survivers - in a concrete building in Banjor.
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Dec. 19, 2014 - Bong, Liberia - At the Ebola graveyard 106 victims of the disease are buried. Some of the burial mounds are big, which contain the graves of adults. The small ones are the graves of children. One of the smallest is the grave of Diana, she only reached the age of four days.
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Dec. 19, 2014 - Bong, Liberia - KORTO has survived Ebola and since she is immune she can now nurse her three-month-old daughter JOSEPHINE at the Ebola Treating Unit.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Banjor, Liberia - MIATA, 9, has lost both her mother and father to Ebola. In spite of the loss she says, 'It is ok now, you have to have faith'.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Banjor, Liberia - FATOU, 5, can't hold back her tears. She lost her parents to Ebola just as the other 45 orphans lost their parents.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - Although the Ebola virus isn't airborne they cover their mouths and noses with their hands.
© Niclas Hammarstrom/Aftonbladet/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press
Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - The burial team of the Red Cross consists of young men and women. For 80 US Dollars a month they do the job nobody wants to do - they collect the suspected dead victims of Ebola. They all carry a protective suit, double gloves, respirator protection and boots. 'I am not afraid,' says 25-year-old THOMAS FREEMAN, right.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - Neighbors gather in the street near where a woman named Rachel, 30, died. Although the Ebola virus isn't airborne they all cover their mouths and noses with their hands as her body is carried away.
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Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - As the burial team arrives to collect the body, the sprayer follows the carriers and sprays the ground with chlorine all the way to the truck that collects the dead bodies.
© Niclas Hammarstrom/Aftonbladet/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press
Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - AUGUSTIN, father of five children, is dead. When the burial team arrives to collect his body, the relatives scream out. They are not yet sure that he died of Ebola, but the symptoms matched the disease with high fever and chills, says one of his daughters.
© Niclas Hammarstrom/Aftonbladet/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press
Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - The Red Cross burial team collects the bodies of dead Ebola victims for burial.
© Niclas Hammarstrom/Aftonbladet/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press
Dec. 17, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - RENDALL MARSHALL, 21, is a gravedigger. The graves of the Ebola victims have to be at least seven feet deep. Previously all Ebola corpses were cremated, but as that is against Liberian tradition relatives hid the bodies and buried them themselves.
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Dec. 20, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - HELENA with her children ABEL, 20 months, and ABRAHEM, 5, at the quarantine 'Ebola holding center' at David Kuyou Sports Center. 'We have been here two weeks and feel fine. If God is with us we can go home in one week.'
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Dec. 21, 2014 - Monrovia, Liberia - MELIN, 14, lost his father and younger brothers to Ebola. 'I pray to God that he will not take away anyone else from my family from me'.
© Niclas Hammarstrom/Aftonbladet/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press
