Freetown, October 17 (RHC)-- The fatal Ebola virus has claimed the lives of at least two people in Sierra Leone's last unaffected area. The victims died in the northern Koinadugu district of Sierra Leone, the country's officials announced on Thursday.

The Koinadugu district had managed to curb the spread of Ebola in its borders since the outbreak of the deadly epidemic, and had been considered Sierra Leone's only Ebola-free region.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization announced that Ebola's infection rate is likely to exceed 10,000 new cases per week in the next two months, adding that the epidemic's mortality rate has reached 70 percent.