House to house search for Ebola in Sierra Leone. Yahoo/AP

A quarantined home in Sierra Leone. Yahoo/AP.

The fight against Ebola continues in Sierra Leone as health officials go on a door to door search for the disease in the nations capital. Yahoo/AP. In addition to the search public holidays, such as Christmas and New Years Eve have been canceled in the country. The disease is making a comeback in the capital of Sierra Leone and the surrounding area. In the past it was largely limited in the rural areas of the country. The infection rate in the other most effected countries, Liberia and Guiana, have stabilized, but the outbreak in Sierra Leone has not. American officials have declined to give any additional help to Sierra Leone due to the British taking responsibility for building hospitals and isolating patients. To date, the Ebola virus has infected at least 18,500 people and killed more then 7000 of them. 

My Comment:

Ebola has largely fallen off the map in the United States, for several reasons. First, it was a huge election issue with both American parties scoring political points with the disease. When the election was over nobody really had any reason to hype the disease anymore. Second, the handful of cases in the United States and the one case in Spain did not spread, and almost everyone that caught the disease in Western countries survived. That made the disease seem like less of a problem then it actually is. Third, the outbreak seems to be slowing a bit. Looking at the raw numbers, I don't know how accurate that is. Liberia and Guiana have seen their rate slow, but there are still dozens of new cases each week. Still, the growth of the disease no longer seems to be exponential. 

The disease is still a threat though. As long as the infection rate is more then one then the disease will continue to spread. Looking at the data, it seems that the spread of Ebola is still steady. That is not bad news exactly, but it isn't the end of the outbreak either. I'm starting to wonder if Ebola is just going to be another of those diseases that just don't go away. Despite all the efforts of the West, Ebola is still around. This outbreak isn't over yet.