12 February 2015
Since the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was officially declared on 22 March in Guinea, it has claimed more than 9,100 lives in the region. The outbreak is the largest ever, and is currently affecting three countries in West Africa: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Outbreaks in Mali, Nigeria and Senegal have been declared over. A separate outbreak in DRC has also ended.
Following the downward trend of new cases reported in Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Ebola management centres across the three affected countries during the first weeks of 2015, between week 5 and week 6 the number of new cases has seen a slight increase (with 19 confirmed admissions on week 6. Surveillance remains weak: the World Health Organization reported that during the last week only about 15% of new cases in Guinea is from known Ebola contacts, while in Sierra Leone the available data is limited (according to WHO, on week 3 21% of new cases were from known contacts). There is almost no information sharing for tracing Ebola contacts between the three most-affected countries. Since a single new case is enough to reignite an outbreak, the level of vigilance should remain high in order not to jeopardise the progress made in stemming the epidemic.
