Ebola outbreak could end in 2015, but fight isn’t over – UN

Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO

A senior official of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Margaret Chan, said on Friday that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa could be stopped at the end of 2015.
Chan, who stated this in New York while briefing the UN Security Council, said that in spite of the projection, the international community needed to continue the fight against the epidemic.
She remarked that the strong international response to the outbreak of the disease in 2014 put Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone – countries worst hit by it – on a path to ending the epidemic.
“If the current intensity of case detection and contact tracing is sustained, the virus can be soundly defeated by the end of this year, that means going to zero and staying at zero,’’ she said.
Chan cautioned against easing the vigilance on eradicating Ebola.
“All it takes is a single undetected case in a health facility, one infected contact fleeing the monitoring system, or one unsafe burial to ignite a flare-up of cases,’’ she added.
The outbreak, which began in March, 2014 and has been the largest since the Ebola virus was discovered in 1976, has infected no fewer than 28,000 people, killing more than 11,000.