What Happens To A Country When An Outbreak Of Ebola Ends?

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO by Linda Poon                                                         May 3, 2015

Liberia is nearing a milestone. On May 9, its Ebola outbreak will be officially declared over, assuming no new cases between now and then.

But what happens when an outbreak of Ebola ends?

 

Dr. Peter Piot (left) meets with Sukato Mandzomba, a nurse who contracted Ebola during the 1976 outbreak. Mandzomba now runs a makeshift hospital lab in Yambuku. Courtesy of Dr. Heidi Larson

 Dr. Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the co-discoverer of Ebola, visited the Democratic Republic of Congo last year. He wanted to show his wife the region where the first known outbreak of the virus took place. They went to Yambuku, a remote village in the north where Ebola killed almost 300 people in 1976.

He says Yambuku hasn't changed much since then.

When Ebola first struck the village, it took a toll on the region's already weak health infrastructure and economy. .... as nearby villages came under quarantine during the harvest season, people weren't able to sell crops. That, he says, exacerbated the poverty.

Nearly 40 years later, Piot says it was hard to find signs of improvement during his visit.

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/05/01/403575192/what-happens-to-a-country-when-an-outbreak-of-ebola-ends