Taking not only developing nations, but the world by surprise, the recent Ebola virus outbreak seen in West Africa is one of unprecedented proportions and terrifying outcomes. Far greater than 20 times worse than previously documented outbreaks in human victims, the current epidemic has made headlines for months as researchers search for a cure and health officials search for a way to stop it from spreading. And while many nations in West Africa are falling farther and farther into a state of disease, the World Health Organization declared that the country of Nigeria has successfully rid itself of the viral pathogen.
WHO representative Rui Gama Vaz announced to reporters that the case of Nigeria is a "spectacular success story" in fighting an infection that has claimed so many lives already, with no indication of an end in sight. After 42 days of being free of infection, with no new cases documented in Nigeria since Sept. 5, the World Health Organization could officially declare the nation free of infection and neighboring nations are wondering exactly how they were able to accomplish such a feat.
"There has been lots of discussion about why this outbreak is so much larger than previous ones" senior professor of medical microbiology at the University of Westminster, Edward Wright says. "In the case of the current outbreak, the virus was able to spread in the highly dense and mobile population before interventions [including early diagnosis and isolation of infected individuals, provision of appropriate protective equipment for medical staff, contact tracing and awareness campaigns targeting the local population] could be put in place."
However, nations like Nigeria with existing infrastructures to combat pathogens are able to quickly raise a front against the spread of disease. Nigeria's greatest accomplishment against the Ebola virus was its drop in transmission rates due to swift action and sensitization campaigns implemented to raise awareness and knowledge about disease prevention. While other nations allowed flawed health practices to persist, Nigerian health officials approached the people in a practical way; teaching sanitization practices and signs for early detection.
"An infected Liberian man who traveled to Nigeria imported the virus, which spread to a further 19 individuals within the country but was quickly contained... in part thanks to an existing health-care surveillance infrastructure in place in Nigeria that is used to monitor for cases of polio" Wright says. "If you can break the transmission, you can control the outbreak."
"Given the scale of this outbreak, it is likely that further measures will be needed, such as the use of experimental treatments and the fast-tracked development of vaccines and therapeutic drugs, as senior experts concluded at a meeting convened by the World health Organization in Geneva at the start of September."
