Epidemics That Weren't: How Countries Shut Down Recent Outbreaks

Epidemics That Weren't: How Countries Shut Down Recent Outbreaks When Ebola swept through eastern Congo in 2018, it was a struggle to track cases. Dr. Billy Yumaine, a public health official, recalls steady flows of people moving back and forth across the border with Uganda while others hid sick family members in their homes because they feared the authorities. It took at least a week to get test results, and health officials had difficulty isolating sick people while they waited. It took two years for the country to bring that outbreak under control, and mor YahooNews

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But that set off a series of steps that Congo put in place after the 2018 outbreak. The patients were tested, the cases were quickly confirmed as a new outbreak of Ebola and, right away, health workers traced 50 contacts of the families...

It made a difference: This time, Ebola claimed just 11 lives.

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