UNICEF strives to keep schools in West Africa Ebola-free

The UN Children's Fund ( UNICEF) and its partners are helping to carry out measures to make schools in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone safe from Ebola transmission, said a UN spokesman at Wednesday's daily briefing here.

Both UNICEF and its partners are working to make sure that students and school staff have their temperatures taken as well as handwashing stations are available in schools, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general.

They also have distributed soap and chlorine, and have trained tens of thousands of teachers and administrators on maintaining safe hygiene practices and standards.

An estimated 5 million children lost months of education as schools remained closed from July 2014 until the first few months of this year as a result of an Ebola outbreak in the three Western African countries, according to Dujarric.

Ebola was first reported in December 2013 in Guinea, which shares the borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone. A total of 27, 609 cases and 11,261 deaths had been reported worldwide as of July 5.

"Response is definitely getting better," World Health Organization Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said of the efforts to combat Eboloa earlier this month, adding that though many challenges remain, eliminating the deadly disease is possible in the near future.

Ebola virus disease, a severe, often fatal illness in humans, is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. The average fatality rate is around 50 percent, according to the World Health Organization website. Endite