October 17, 2014

expert reaction to news that the WHO have officially declared the Ebola outbreak in Senegal over

The World Health Organization (WHO) have declared the outbreak of Ebola in Senegal to be over.

Prof David Evans, Professor of Virology, University of Warwick, said:

“The announcement by the WHO of Ebola-free status in Senegal (and the expected announcement for Nigeria) is particularly reassuring. This shows that the virus can be contained and the outbreak controlled by contact tracing, quarantine, good diagnostics and barrier protection. Although Senegal had only a single case, previous experience in Uganda demonstrates that the prompt application of these methods can rapidly limit larger outbreaks; the 2000 outbreak in Uganda had 425 cases (224 deaths), the 2007 outbreak resulted in 149 cases (37 deaths) and the most recent outbreak in 2012 had only 24 cases (17 deaths). These control methods have been successful in all previous Ebola outbreaks. However, the scale of the current epidemic in West Africa makes the implementation of these procedures much more difficult, meaning that the virus is likely to circulate there for several more months before being controlled.”

Declared interests

None declared