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Nigeria Is Ebola-Free: Here’s What They Did Right

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It's been 42 days since the last new case

TIME MAGAZINE                                                      OCT. 20, 2014

Alexandra Sifferlin

 The World Health Organization declared Nigeria free of Ebola on Monday, a containment victory in an outbreak that has stymied other countries’ response efforts....

 

A school official takes a pupil's temperature using an infrared digital laser thermometer in front of the school premises, at the resumption of private schools, in Lagos, Sept. 22, 2014. Akintunde Akinleye—Reuters

“It’s possible to control Ebola. It’s possible to defeat Ebola. We’ve seen it here in Nigeria,” Nigerian Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu told TIME. “If any cases emerge in the future, it will be considered—by international standards—a separate outbreak. If that happens, Nigeria will be ready and able to confront it exactly as we have done with this outbreak.”

Nigeria had 20 cases of Ebola after a Liberian-American man named Patrick Sawyer flew into Lagos and collapsed at the airport. Health care workers treating Sawyer were infected, and as it spread it ultimately killed eight people, a low number next to the thousands of cases and deaths in other countries. Nigeria’s health system is considered more robust, but there was significant concern from experts that a case would pop up in one of the country’s dense-populated slums and catch fire.... 

So what did Nigeria do right? Chukwu and Dr. Faisal Shuaib of the country's Ebola Emergency Operations Center broke it down for TIME...

Read full story

http://time.com/3522984/ebola-nigeria-who/

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submitted by George Hurlburt

      

Empty ebola ward in Nigeria.  Credit: CDC Global via flickr

What we can learn from the boot leather, organization and quick response times that stopped Ebola from spreading in this African nation

scientificamerican.com - by Katherine Harmon Courage - October 18, 2014

On July 20 a man who was ill flew on commercial planes from the heart of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia to Lagos, Nigeria's largest city. That man became Nigeria's first Ebola case—the index patient. In a matter of weeks some 19 people across two states were diagnosed with the disease (with one additional person presumed to have contracted it before dying).

But rather than descending into epidemic, there has not been a new case of the virus since September 5. . .

. . . What can we learn from this African country's success quashing an Ebola outbreak?

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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