Since the article “Who is Responsible for the 2014 Ebola Outbreak?” published in the Paper Tiger on October 30, 2014, the Ebola outbreak has slowed down in Liberia, previously one of the countries with the most widespread and intense virus transmission. Health authorities in Liberia are reporting lower numbers of new infections. Dr. Bruce Aylward, the assistant director-general for World Health Organization (WHO) told reporters in Geneva that there are now unoccupied beds in treatment centers in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, and the number of burials has also declined. Dr. Aylward predicted that there may be as much as a 25 percent week-on-week reduction in cases in Liberia.
While this comes as good news, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, if large-scale intervention had been started much earlier than September, the total number of cases by May 25, 2015 would have remained below 5000.
The WHO says that the Ebola epidemic is far from over. As stated in “Who is Responsible for the 2014 Ebola Outbreak?” WHO projected on October 14, 2014, that there could be 10,000 new cases per week by December 2014. Dr. Aylward says we cannot completely discard this assessment. WHO will constantly review the progress of the epidemic and the efforts to combat it.
