Nigeria Is Ebola-Free: Here’s What They Did Right

It's been 42 days since the last new case

TIME MAGAZINE                                                      OCT. 20, 2014

Alexandra Sifferlin

 The World Health Organization declared Nigeria free of Ebola on Monday, a containment victory in an outbreak that has stymied other countries’ response efforts....

A school official takes a pupil's temperature using an infrared digital laser thermometer in front of the school premises, at the resumption of private schools, in Lagos, Sept. 22, 2014. Akintunde Akinleye—Reuters

“It’s possible to control Ebola. It’s possible to defeat Ebola. We’ve seen it here in Nigeria,” Nigerian Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu told TIME. “If any cases emerge in the future, it will be considered—by international standards—a separate outbreak. If that happens, Nigeria will be ready and able to confront it exactly as we have done with this outbreak.”

Nigeria had 20 cases of Ebola after a Liberian-American man named Patrick Sawyer flew into Lagos and collapsed at the airport. Health care workers treating Sawyer were infected, and as it spread it ultimately killed eight people, a low number next to the thousands of cases and deaths in other countries. Nigeria’s health system is considered more robust, but there was significant concern from experts that a case would pop up in one of the country’s dense-populated slums and catch fire.... 

So what did Nigeria do right? Chukwu and Dr. Faisal Shuaib of the country's Ebola Emergency Operations Center broke it down for TIME...

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http://time.com/3522984/ebola-nigeria-who/