Signs are that West Africa may soon be declared Ebola-free

What you need to know:

  • The shipment is the first potentially preventive medicine to reach any of the hardest countries hit by the outbreak since it began a year ago, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
  • The virus that causes it, unfortunately roaming in a continent with abundant shares of woes, Africa, has in the past stealthily come, killed and then hibernates. So do other viruses and bacterium.
  • It’s worth of note WHO first convened an emergency meeting on August 8, 2013, to discussed a killer disease whose outbreak began in December 2013

Two events related to the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in three countries in West Africa have occurred this month, both auspicious and educating.

On Friday, the BBC reported the first batch of experimental vaccine against Ebola arrived in Liberia. The shipment is the first potentially preventive medicine to reach any of the hardest countries hit by the outbreak since it began a year ago, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Anyway, on January 14, Aljazeera reported the World Health Organization saying Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had then reported the lowest number of weekly cases for months. Liberia reported zero cases, its lowest since June. For Guinea and Sierra Leone, it was since August.

There’s no reason, however, that the arrival of the vaccine or the decreasing number of new cases should lead to complacency. That’s in order. As Doctors Without Borders, which was among the first humanitarian organisation to warn the outbreak was out of control, said, new cases, especially in Guinea, are occurring.

CONTINUES TO SPREAD

“While the total number of new cases has been relatively stable during the last three weeks, the epidemic continues to spread geographically, with new districts declaring cases for the first time,” the organisation, known by its French acronym, MSF, said in a statement.

The Ebola Virus Disease now shortened to EVD by WHO, among others, isn’t new. The virus that causes it, unfortunately roaming in a continent with abundant shares of woes, Africa, has in the past stealthily come, killed and then hibernates. So do other viruses and bacterium.

Because of their irregular appearance, policy and money makers—read pharmaceutical companies—tend to forget them, until they return, kill a few thousand souls in poorest of countries and the wringing of hands begins.

The West African outbreak turned out to be the worst outbreak ever and some overdue action started. In other words, the question that policy makers and health officials especially should have asked the first—what if it comes again?—got attention.

The vaccine that arrived in Liberia was developed by the British pharmaceutical company GlaxcoSmithCline, which had earlier projected it would produce 15,000 by the end of this year. The company is among many that are working on a vaccine against Ebola. That antibiotic now in use are losing potency remains in the back burner, until, well another stealth killer or a known one strikes.

SOME CONSOLATION

That Ebola cases are decreasing is some consolation. The US Centres for Diseases Control, CDC reports as of January 20, the EVD had infected 21,797 and killed 8,675.

That’s way below what the organization had last September predicted would be “without additional intervention or changes in the community behaviour.” Both came, albeit too late.

It’s worth of note WHO first convened an emergency meeting on August 8, 2013, to discussed a killer disease whose outbreak began in December 2013. One thousand and seventy cases and 932 deaths had been confirmed. If that’s not inertia, the idea doesn’t exist.

The saving grace, as Microsoft founder Bill Gates noted when addressing British legislators last November, is that EVD isn’t “more transmissive.” Therefore, the outbreak is a lesson on what-and-how-not- to-do with any outbreak.