A rise in new cases of Ebola

Just yesterday WHO reported an upsurge in the number of cases confirmed in the previous week. 124 new cases have been identified. The previous victory of recording the lowest number of new cases in a week since June 2014 was short lived. (99 cases in the week that ended on the 25th of January). In this recent surge, 80 were from Sierra Leone, 39 from Guinea and 5 from Liberia. This is not totally unexpected says Dr David Nabaro a UN special envoy on Ebola, "Small pockets of infection still exist." 11 of the cases in Guinea have been traced to a burial that took place early in January in Eastern Guinea close to Cote'd'ivoire where unsafe traditional burial practices may have taken place. Half of the newly confirmed cases in Guinea have been traced to contact with other cases. There also seems to be a gradual spread of the virus to new areas, especially areas close to its border with Mali. It's perturbing that only 21 percent of the 80 cases in Sierra Leone are from known sources. Meaning that, there are many unknown contacts moving about freely,and if they are not tracked down quickly, may spark up an upsurge of new cases in the region. The challenges with combatting the spread of the virus are not trivial. The main goal is the quick identification of new cases, quick and efficient contact tracing and isolation of contacts till after the window period. There are several road blocks to efficiently achieving these goals. In guinea for example, health workers are still faced with resistance within the community. Cases of resistance were reported by close to a third of the health districts last week. The lack of cooperation amidst the indigenes has limited the effectiveness of contact tracing in the region. The people are afraid of the health workers and flee when they are sighted. Hidden cases and secret burial of victims is also not helping matters. Medecine des Frontiers (Doctors without borders ) said in a recent release that time and efforts should have been invested on educating the people about the virus early on in the outbreak, rather than focussing merely on treatment of confirmed cases. This may have helped to improve the people's cooperation with the health workers and reduced the number of casualties. MSF further said that the approach needs to change at this time. Good health practices and hygiene needs to be promoted more at this point in the battle. UNICEF Iin a statement today said that dialogue with the communities is essential in the fight against Ebola. Earlier this week,the Liberian government initially re opened schools that had been closed since last year, however the re opening has been postponed till the 16th of February to make room for adequate provision of health and safety protocols. Many thanks to all the groups and individuals who have rallied around West Africa in an effort to bring this epidemic to a stop. Over 400 health workers have died as a result of this. Many thanks to the thousands of health workers and volunteers who have continued to fight despite the challenges. Many lessons have been learned which we believe would be put to use in future emergencies of this magnitude or lesser.