Guinea cleared to host matches after being declared Ebola-free

Published 01/04/2016, 9:21 AM EST

CAIRO (Reuters) – Guinea has been cleared to host international soccer matches after being declared free of Ebola transmission, the African Football Confederation (CAF) said on Monday.

Last year’s African Nations Cup quarter-finalists, ranked 50th in the world by global federation FIFA, had been banned from staging games since August 2014 and was playing its home matches in Casablanca, Morocco.

The West African nation was declared free of Ebola transmission on Tuesday after more than 2,500 people died from the virus there, leaving Liberia as the only country still counting down the days until the end of the epidemic.

“CAF …confirms lifting the ban on the organization of continental matches in Guinea, and for all competitions organised by CAF,” its general secretary Hicham El Amrani said.

Guinea’s next scheduled home game is an African Nations Cup qualifier against Malawi on March 23.

(Writing by Brian Homewood in Zurich; editing by John Stonestreet)

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