An Ebola victim is cremated in Monrovia, Liberia.

Health experts from the World Health organization have declared Liberia as free of the Ebola virus which killed over 4,700 people in the country after a yearlong epidemic.

Liberia was the nation that was worst affected by Ebola’s dramatic emergence. Hospitals were flooded with patients dying before receiving any treatment, flights into and out of the country cancelled; businesses, schools, borders and markets were closed causing food and fuel to also run low.

The country has not seen a case of the disease in over 42 days however organizations are stressing that vigilance is key until other bordering countries have extinguished the outbreak. Outbreaks persist in neighboring countries Guinea and Sierra Leone.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that while Liberia could take pride in winning the battle against Ebola, their work was not finished.

“At times when you are at your worst, it is when you become your best. That was what happened to us,” she said during a speech at Liberias incident management centre. “The task is not yet over … The challenge is that we stay at zero.”

Liberia was recording hundreds of new cases a week at the outbreaks peak which caused international alarm and the United States to send in hundreds of soldiers to help build treatment clinics in the country. The White House congratulated the country on its result however stated there is more work to be done in the countries neighboring regions.

Critical to the change was the countries national awareness campaign to educate Liberians on how to reduce their chances of contracting Ebola.

“It is a tribute to the government and people of Liberia that determination to defeat Ebola never wavered, courage never faltered,” said the WHO’s representative, Alex Gasasira, in Monrovia on Saturday.

International aid organisations stepped in as the country was too heavily understaffed and equipped to manage the outbreak. According to the 2006 health study there were just 5,000 full-time or part-time health workers and 51 Liberian doctors to meet a population of 3.8 million. The World Health Organisation believes a total of 868 health workers caught the virus in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since the beginning of the outbreak, with 507 dying of the disease.

The U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, said that even though fewer than 20 new cases were reported in Sierra Leone and Guinea over the past week, it could take many months to get to zero.