Obama meets Liberian president, hails "extraordinary" Ebola progress

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday hailed "extraordinary strides in driving back Ebola" in a meeting with his Liberian counterpart Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf at the White House.

Obama said new Ebola cases in Liberia are now down 95 percent from the peak, with just "a handful of cases" being reported per week.

But he cautioned that the job "is not yet done" and that neighboring countries like Guinea and Sierra Leone "are still somewhat behind the progress" that's been made in Liberia.

"The meeting today will obviously discuss how we make sure that we're not complacent so long as there's even one case of Ebola remaining in West Africa," the U.S. president said.

During her remarks, Liberian President Johnson-Sirleaf expressed her thanks to the U.S. for helping in the fight against Ebola.

Johnson-Sirleaf said even though 13 of 15 counties in her country have no new Ebola cases, Liberia's still not "getting to the place where we can really say we can confront and we can beat this disease."

"We know that we all remain under threat until all of us have reached a place where we get to zero," she continued. "And so we have to remain resilient."

There have been nearly 24,000 cases and 9,600 deaths since the Ebola outbreak began last year in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization.

But there has been a significant decline in new Ebola cases this year in the three West African countries, especially in Liberia. Earlier this month, the White House announced that all but 100 of the 2,800 U.S. troops deployed to West Africa to help fight Ebola with will return home by the end of April.

Also on Friday, the U.S. and Liberian governments launched a clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an experimental Ebola drug called ZMapp. Endite