International cooperation in combating Ebola

As global efforts gear up, there are signs of improvement, though the Ebola scare is not over yet. The major success is Nigeria, which the WHO has declared free of the disease after no new infection was reported in more than six weeks, double the incubation period of the deadly Ebola virus. "The story of how Nigeria ended what many believed to be potentially the most explosive Ebola outbreak imaginable is worth telling in detail," the WHO said in a statement.

The WHO played a leading role in Nigeria by tracking down the people who had had contact with Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer. Sawyer was the index case in the spread of the virus into Nigeria, arriving in Lagos on July 20 and dying five days later. All Ebola infections in Nigeria were due to him. It was quite a task to find people in a city of 21 million, but with the assistance of the WHO, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other organizations, government health officials managed to find nearly everyone who had contact with infected people.

The Nigerian government also played its part by providing sufficient financial assistance, but the success still came after real hard work and not before 19 people were infected with Ebola, seven of whom died. The fatality rate was 40 percent, which was much lower than the approximately 70 percent seen elsewhere. The WHO also declared Senegal free of Ebola shortly after they announced Nigeria's success.

The lessons learnt in Nigeria should be replicated in other countries. The international community not only needs to provide financial assistance and trained medical professionals, but there should be an international portal shared among WHO member countries to record each new case of infection and keep track of those who come into contact with infected individuals.

Cuba serves as an excellent example of the fact that every country, irrespective of its size and resources, matters. Preventing the spread of Ebola is not just the responsibility of rich or big countries like the United States, China or the EU, but a common cause which demands joint action. According to the WHO, so far 9,900 people have been infected with the virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and only 4,900 of those have died. This means that there are still thousands of infected patients. The war against the deadly virus will end only when the last infected person is cured.

The writer is Pakistan-based analyst.

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