NewsTracker Answers for week of Jan. 18, 2016

Q: Liberia's Ebola epidemic is over, says the World Health Organization, effectively putting an end to the world's worst outbreak of the disease. Where is Liberia?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Liberia suffered the most deaths since the epidemic began in late 2013. Compared with Liberia's 4,809 fatalities, only eight people died during the outbreak in Africa's most populous nation . . .

A. Angola

B. Nigeria

C. South Africa

D. Uganda


B. With about 184 million people, Nigeria has more than twice the population of any other African nation. Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat by using a method of contact tracing later copied by other countries.


Q: The Ebola epidemic started in which nation on Liberia's northern border?

A. Botswana

B. Ethiopia

C. Guinea

D. Morocco


C. The outbreak began in Guinea in December 2013 and spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone where 3,955 people died. Guinea recorded 2,536 deaths followed by the eight deaths in Nigeria and six dead in Mali, northeast of Guinea.


Q: Ebola cases were diagnosed in four nations outside of Africa. Which nation also recorded Ebola deaths?

A. Italy

B. Spain

C. United Kingdom

D. United States


D. Two people who contracted Ebola in Liberia were diagnosed in the United States, and one of them died. Two nurses who treated one of the patients were diagnosed and recovered. Of seven Ebola patients evacuated to the U.S., only one died.


Q: The Ebola patient evacuated to the U.S. who died was a doctor in Sierra Leone who thought he had what disease common in the region?

A. Malaria

B. Polio

C. Smallpox


A. The doctor treated his symptoms as malaria after his first Ebola test was negative. By the time a second test came up positive, he was critically ill. There has not been a natural case of smallpox since 1977, and wild cases of polio are limited to Afghanistan and Pakistan.