Bruce Aylward, MD, MPH, the WHO’s assistant director-general in charge of Ebola outbreak response, said the risk of flare-ups is diminishing as the virus gradually fades from the survivor population.
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Follay Gallah, an ambulance driver who contracted the disease while intervening in an affected community in 2014, welcomed Thursday’s news but warned: “We could have a recurrence if we don’t do those things that we need to do”. All of the more than 165 contacts were identified and closely monitored, but no new infections were detected. This means that even though West Africa has been cleared, there is a still 21 days that someone can contract the disease, which is possibly what happened in this case. “A massive effort is under way to ensure robust prevention, surveillance and response capacity across all three countries by the end of March”. Male survivors have to be particularly careful as the virus can be present in semen for up to one year following infection. Although transmission has been halted, the virus can remain in survivors and be re-transmitted.
In the near term, the world must remain vigilant to stay at zero Ebola cases, especially with the threat of flare-ups of the disease, while helping the three hardest-hit countries recover and rebuild their economies and health systems.
At its peak, it devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. Cases also popped up in Mali, Senegal and Nigeria though transmission chains there were quickly shut down.
De le Vingne points out that scientific research became an integral part of ground operations during the epidemic, as the unprecedented outbreak offered a rare opportunity to study the Ebola virus and potential vaccines. It has an extremely high mortality rate, around 40 per cent.
“All known chains of transmission have been stopped in West Africa”, the World Health Organization said in a statement.
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An Associated Press investigation found the United Nations health agency delayed declaring an worldwide emergency for political and economic reasons. In 2013, for example, member states slashed the WHO’s outbreak and crisis response budget by 51 per cent for the following two years, leading to substantial staff cuts, his study of the WHO’s Ebola response found. A road map outlined by an independent group of global health experts focused heavily on the reforms that the WHO needs to undertake in order to better prepare it for the next global health crisis. He expressed the WHO’s appreciation of the continued generous and most valuable technical, financial and logistical support that the worldwide community has always provided to Liberia.
