NPR Oct. 29, 2014
By Gregory Warner
There are all kinds of theories why Ebola hasn't arrived in Ivory Coast, despite the fact that it shares a long and very porous border with two Ebola-afflicted countries, Liberia and Guinea....
Mumadou Traore, a field coordinator for CARE International, says the Ivory Coast's French bureaucracy is a "blessing" when it comes to Ebola.
Dr. Seydou Coulibaly is the regional health director of Tompki county, which shares the longest border with Liberia and Guinea. He says that in the first weeks of the outbreak, before official prevention directives were issued from the capital, he was telling clinics and hospitals to send him daily Ebola watch reports. He gets a hundred a day. Even before the borders were sealed, he was sending health workers to take people's temperature when they crossed. He's also arranged trainings for schoolteachers and soldiers.
All these efforts will help, he says — maybe not to prevent the virus from coming to the country but at least the first eventual case will be well-managed. That's the main objective.
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