All three of the West African nations, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, report a decline in new Ebola cases.
Guinea and Liberia turned the corner earlier, but Sierra Leone lagged behind, reporting flare ups of new cases all through the Christmas season. This week Sierra Leone reported the lowest weekly total of new cases since last summer.
Safe burials of the corpses were the biggest common problem, and all three countries have worked hard to help people understand that this was the most common way to contract the disease. Their culture and religious traditions required washing of the body by relatives.
Schools and universities in all three countries have been closed since last summer, but Guinea announced that their schools and universities will reopen next Monday.
Research continues to show that fruit bats, a delicacy to some in these areas, are the virus’s host.
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Some of you know that I am no fan of President Obama. I don’t agree with most of his views, but I believe he has handled this crisis as well as can be expected from anyone. Though the CDC was slow in getting ready for any possible occurrences of the disease in the US, their response afterwards was quick.
Also, our President’s assignment of an Ebola Czar seemed to be a misstep, but in the end he may have been right. In retrospect what we needed most was to step back, calm down, and keep a cool head. I think they may have done this by suppressing information to the public. I’m no fan of suppressing information, but people out here were getting a little crazy over the prospect of them or their family contracting the disease, me included.
His other strategy, I believe, was to contain the disease by first sending personnel (health caregivers and the military) to the areas where the disease was spreading out of control. At first I thought this was missing the mark since the situation in the Middle East seemed far more threatening at the time. After reading up on what this disease can do to a population, though, I realized that this virus was the most threatening enemy out there.
It just shows that we in the US have a good, solid governmental structure. Our representative form of government works well because we elect people to be in the middle and make the best decisions they can with the information they have. All of us out here are the democracy, and often we do not have enough information to make the day to day decisions for us and our country.
I just want to say thank you to all the health care givers, health care officials, our military, the officials of the three most affected countries, all the health care associations who worked so hard, the CDC, the TSA, our own hospitals in the US who agreed to take on patients and are working on a cure, those who prayed, those who donated, and our President. I know this is not over, but it appears this very bad outbreak could be over soon for those suffering people in those three West African nations.
We are all very fortunate that they may have stopped Ebola over there before it had a chance to reach our shores in multiples.