Ebola - trying to stay one step ahead

Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau are countries that border on the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic that encompasses Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. All these nations wish to protect themselves.

One of the more obvious measures is to screen people entering the country. "We are using thermal imaging cameras to detect people at airports and borders who are running a temperature," said Malian physician Adamas Daou. He works at Mali's National Action Center for the fight against Ebola. Medical personnel are also on duty urging Malians to practice good personal hygiene. "This includes washing their hands in chlorinated water" Daou said.

Thermal imaging cameras have also been deployed in Senegal. "This is because fever is one of the first symptoms of Ebola," said Mamadou Ndiaye, Director of Prevention at the Senegalese Ministry of Health.

"As soon as somebody enters the country, we can check whether they have a fever or not. If they do and have just come from one of the countries hit by Ebola, then that person is put under observation until tests have been completed," he said.

As well as screening new arrivals, Senegal is also training specialist staff and preparing for any further Ebola cases.

So far there has only been one case in Senegal. He was a student who arrived from Guinea and who recovered from the disease in early September, just a few days after his diagnosis.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Senegal to be free of Ebola on Friday (17.10.2014) and praised the government for its good crisis management. 74 people who had been in contact with the sufferer were placed under observation and the authorities also mounted an intensive Ebola education campaign.

Nigeria can also now count itself among the countries that have overcome the virus. After 42 days - twice the incubation period - during which no new confirmed case of Ebola was recorded, the WHO described Nigeria as a "spectacular success story which shows that Ebola can be defeated."

The virus was brought to Nigeria by a Liberian-American airline passenger, triggering fears that the disease would spread rapidly in Africa's most populous nation. But the Nigerian authorities were able to trace almost everybody who had been in contact with the infected individual.

WHO Director General Margaret Chan said if a country like Nigeria, which is hampered by serious security problems, could do this then it should be possible for any country in the world experiencing an imported case to "hold onward transmission to just a handful of cases."

In Senegal, Ndiaye remains cautious despite the initial success in keeping the disease at bay. The measures they have taken are not sufficient, he told DW. But they are necessary and there is as yet no alternative. Because screening at borders and airports cannot guarantee 100 percent security, he believes the country's health system should be "able to trace people who have slipped through the net and are already in the country." The local population would have to help, he said.

Education about Ebola remains one of the most important counter-measures. Meanwhile scientists in Mali are at work on eradicating the disease by other means. "In Bamako, trials are underway for an Ebola vaccine," Health Minister Ousmane Kone told the news agency AFP. The vaccine made by the British pharmaceutical giant Glaxo-Smith-Kline has already undergone trials in the United Kingdom and the United States. Mali is the first African country in which the drug is being tested - by scientists under laboratory conditions.