Working WHO measures the temperature of a man in Tana, in Guinea
Sirens sounded while government convoy of vehicles followed by a narrow dirt road almost shrouded in tall weeds. The prime minister had arrived and was there to give this rural community a serious reprimand.
"I demand the cooperation of the population," said Prime Minister Mohamed Said Fofana, almost shouting in makeshift bamboo stage. "Ebola was eliminated in almost all places-except here," Fofana told nearly 300 people gathered around him. "The eyes of the world are on the village of Tana."
This is the last known location on Earth with Ebola.
After almost 22 months and more than 11,300 deaths worldwide, the worst Ebola epidemic in history now comes down to a handful of cases in a cluster of villages in rural Guinea, the country where the epidemic began.
Liberia, where more than 4,800 people were killed by the virus poses no case for two months, since the last Ebola patient was discharged. Sierra Leone, where nearly 4,000 died, was declared officially free of Ebola on Saturday (7), defined as a milestone after 42 days without any new case.
And although the virus has already plagued Guinea, now confined s seven new cases reported in recent weeks. But it is proving frustratingly difficult to be eliminated.
Reaches zero -As effort to finally end the epidemic is known-has plagued governments and international health experts for months. Workers from aid groups were the villages where the virus is still spreading, a promising experimental vaccine is being given to adults who have been in contact with a victim and government officials before reluctant to recognize the dangerous epidemic, are helping to fight it.
But even with hundreds of millions of dollars spent to combat the epidemic, the approach to end the disease remains uneven, at best.
Workers on the front lines still make basic errors. The guards in Ebola checkpoints let some passenger vehicles to pass without checking whether they are a fever. Health workers play without gloves in people who may be carriers of the virus. Isolated communities who are experiencing Ebola first reluctant to take meticulous precautions and not rely on aid workers.
The risk of a further worsening of the epidemic is still very real. About 150 people were in close contact with new victims, so are at risk of being contaminated. In addition, more than 200 people who have had brief contact with a victim, perhaps because they split a taxi, could not be traced.
"Frankly, we are all waiting," said Christopher Dye, strategy director of the World Health Organization is leading the epidemiological response to Ebola.
The authorities in Sierra Leone are particularly concerned. The border of the country is less than 30 km of new cases here in Guinea, and the flow of people through these porous national borders was a major reason for the virus have spread so easily throughout the region.
Fofana personally came to Tana on a search mission. "A woman is missing and can not understand why," she cried the Prime Minister berating the villagers not to monitor patients.
The woman, Aminata Camara, took care of a friend who died of Ebola in making a likely next victim. Then Camara disappeared. No one had a clue since she hid, so that authorities arrested her husband, a radical approach that aims to convey the seriousness of the problem. Fofana said that if she did not show up soon, he would lay off the village chief.
The fact that Guinea had not been hit as hard as Sierra Leone and Liberia may also explain why Ebola has been so difficult to be eliminated here.
"In Guinea, we never suffer an apocalyptic contagion as in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We never had bodies in the streets," said Ranu Dhillon, one public health expert who directs the office of the President of Guinea. "We never had the same kind of critical time in terms of national response."
On a recent afternoon, Seydouba Soumah sat dazed on a bench while her young children were running around. They are motherless and he is already a widower for the second time. His two wives recently died from Ebola and he have other children who are hospitalized with the infection. He remained with distant look and silent as health officials mediate its temperature. He also runs a high risk of becoming ill, and children at his feet.
"The Prime Minister is right to ask the community to mobilize," said Makhissa Sako, a five-mother in a village in the middle of the current outbreak. "This disease is hard. Ebola kills."
The recent series of infections in this part of Guinea began in mid-September after a girl who was with relatives in the capital, Conakry, returned home to seek care from a traditional healer and died. She underwent a Ebola checkpoint where his fever was recorded, yet was allowed to continue on their journey, said Doctors Without Borders, and avoided others to take secondary roads.
An international team of health workers soon came to the village in order to identify all those who were in contact with the girl, but met resistance from residents who feared reveal personal details to strangers.
Workers trying to ensure that victims of Ebola were buried in security in this region were beaten this year. In September 2014, eight health -Staff people, local authorities and jornalistas- were killed, a reflection of the old political tensions that make it harder to combat Ebola in Guinea.
Clashes decreased as the spread of the disease was contained. But the recent presidential election and the riots fears complicate relief efforts and generate more conspiracy theories about the disease. The slogan "Ebola is real," which appears on posters and billboards across the country, reflects the challenge that persists.
"Getting to this point has required immense resources, but getting to zero and remain so requires the most meticulous and difficult of all," read a recent newsletter of Doctors Without Borders. "We can not lose focus now."
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