Disaster Response

The three West African nations ravaged by Ebola could struggle to prevent another major outbreak as vigilance fades among health workers and the public, a health expert said on Monday.

Ebola victims in recent flare-ups in Liberia and Sierra Leone were inspected by health workers who were not wearing protective clothing, while the corpse of one woman victim was washed by several people, contrary to best practice.

Health facilities must reinforce infection prevention and control measures or risk widening the spread of new Ebola outbreaks, according to Armand Sprecher, public health specialist at medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

The World Health Organization has joined the government of Sierra Leone in marking the end of the recent flare-up of Ebola virus disease in the country, but warned that the country, Liberia and Guinea are still at risk.

“As of today, March 17, 42 days have passed, two incubation cycles of the virus, since the last person confirmed to have Ebola virus disease in the country tested negative for a  second time,” a statement issued by the WHO and copied to the Ghana News Agency said.

“This latest flare-up of Ebola brings to 3,590 the number of lives lost in Sierra Leone to an epidemic that devastated families and communities across the country and disrupted every aspect of life. Today marks another milestone in the country’s effort to defeat Ebola,” it said.

When the Ebola outbreak was confirmed in Guinea two years ago, one of the reasons the virus spread so quickly was due to the high amount of people traffic across the borders of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. To mitigate the introduction of new Ebola cases or other diseases by cross border travellers, the Red Cross has introduced a community event-based surveillance system. It is successful, in large part, due to the engagement of community members.

A comprehensive new study of measles and pertussis outbreaks in the United States suggests that adults’ reluctance or refusal to vaccinate themselves and their children has played a key role in the resurgence of diseases that had been largely eradicated in this country.

In an analysis published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., epidemiologists scoured reports of measles and pertussis outbreaks to glean what role vaccination refusal and hesitance played. They also considered the effect of waning immunity among those who were vaccinated.