The Ebola outbreak is almost over. Two days remain until Liberia is declared Ebola-free. Yahoo/AFP

Nurses help a man infected with Ebola last year. Yahoo/AFP.

The Ebola outbreak, which has killed more then 10,000 people, is almost over. Yahoo/AFP. Liberia, once a hot spot for the disease, is only two days away from being declared Ebola-free. I has been 40 days since the last case of Ebola was recorded in Liberia. The woman in that case died after she became infected from her boyfriend, an Ebola survivor, after having sex with him. The number of cases in Liberia went from hundreds in a week down to single digit infections at the start of 2015. Small numbers of cases are still happening in Guinea and Sierra Leone, but not nearly at the rate it happened before. Criticism of the world's response to the outbreak has been extensive. It took a long time for help to reach Ebola stricken areas, but by the time help it was already too late. 

My Comment:

I really hope that Liberia is declared Ebola free in a couple of days. This outbreak has gone on for much too long as it is. Liberia was almost declared Ebola free a couple of months ago but unfortunately the last case popped up out of nowhere. That cases seems to have been spread through sexual contact with an Ebola survivor. Obviously, it is a concern that this could happen again. The hope is that people will be smart and just not have sex with Ebola survivors until it is clear that the virus is out of their system, but the fact that AIDS and other STI's still exist leads me to think that the disease may very well pop up again, either before the all-clear is sounded or after. 

From what I understand there weren't all that many cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone. They had 9 cases each, which should, in theory, be low enough that they will have no trouble stamping out the disease in the next couple of months. Given how bad the situation was in both of those countries, even after the disease waned in Liberia, that is good news. I'm predicting that by the end of this summer there will be no more Ebola in any West African country. 

I agree that there outbreak was handled extremely poorly. It was clear to me when I started this blog last summer that the Ebola situation was spiraling out of control but it wasn't really addressed as such until the end of the summer. Even after the emergency was declared, it took a long time for the world to react. In my view, the world did not take it seriously until cases started popping up outside of Africa. 

And this is where I disagree with the article. A quarantine absolutely should have been put in place. The smart thing to have done would have been to ban casual travel in and out of West Africa. Of course, you would let doctors, nurses and other people there to help travel but normal people would not be let in or out without a damn good reason. Had we put these restrictions into place, the outbreaks in Nigeria and the United States would have never happened. 

It is critical to note that we got incredibly lucky that Ebola didn't spread farther then it did. Though the disease was never a huge threat to Western countries, it could have spread to other third world countries and had a devastating impact. I shudder to think what would have happened if the disease had made it to India or the more war torn parts of the Middle East. Given how crowded and poor India is it would have found a haven, which would lead to secondary infections across the world. Ditto with the Middle East, which would have spread Ebola through the vast refugee populations fleeing the fighting. 

Indeed, even the outbreak in America could have been worse if more people had made it in from West Africa or if the guy that spread the disease didn't seek treatment right away. As tragic as his death was I do think it helped control the outbreak. After seeing that even in America you had a decent chance of dying, people may have rethought fleeing the country to seek treatment. Given how unprepared the hospital in Dallas was for Ebola if there had been more initial cases it could have been overwhelmed. I still can't believe that they didn't move the patient to one of the hospitals that had experience treating Ebola patients.

It's not a good sign for the future. When the next dangerous disease pops up, I doubt we will be ready for it. And it will, sooner or later. Ebola, for all of its deadliness, spreads fairly poorly. When the next Spanish Flu or Black Death shows up, the response to the Ebola crisis does not exactly convince me that we will be prepared for it.