The Ebola epidemic in West Africa that has claimed thousands of lives and wreaked havoc on the fragile economies of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia is no longer front page news. But despite significant progress in tackling the epidemic, the virus remains, and international as well as local health workers are still working day and night to get to zero cases.
Last week there were 24 confirmed cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone and Guinea according to the World Health Organization’s latest numbers — a modest improvement compared with the previous week’s 27 cases, and yet a discouraging step backwards from the nine cases reported the week of May 10.
So what is needed to stamp out the virus? What’s the one thing global health and development professionals should do to reach the long-sought goal of zero Ebola cases?