Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How One African Country Beat Ebola

At this point, we�ve gone a month since the last case of ebola virus disease was discharged from the treatment center, followed up almost 900 contacts until they�ve exited the stage of developing the disease. We�ve continued to conduct enhanced surveillance in the health facilities and the communities as well. We feel pretty confident that we�ve got a handle on this, on the outbreak, but from an epidemiological point of view, we cannot declare the outbreak is over until 42 days, equivalent to two incubation periods, after the last case was discharged from the hospital.

What we did was ensure that anybody that had contact with a case was tracked down and monitored on a daily basis, recording the temperature, if they developed a fever, brought into the isolation center. Cast out a wide net for any potential contact with the index case, a way that ensured ruthless efficiency.

How do you deal with panic?

You need to rapidly counter-attack misinformation, because panic and fear tends to decrease the chances of people reporting to the health facilities. People are concerned they might be stigmatized. Communication very clearly to the society around the fact that getting ebola virus disease is not a death sentence. The key is reporting early to the health authorities who know how to manage care. One of the reasons why people succumb is that without reporting to the health facility, once people get vomiting or passing stool, its hard to replace fluids and electrolytes.