Swift action allowed Nigeria to prevent spread of Ebola

The Ebola virus appears to be under control in Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, thanks to swift action by emergency health officials there.
The response to control and treat Ebola cases in the West African country was aided by an array of international partners including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross.
There have been 19 confirmed Ebola cases in Nigeria; eight of them proved fatal. But there have been no new cases since August 19, and all but three of the 900 patients who had possible contact with the disease have completed their 21-day follow-up period without Ebola symptoms. The last three will have completed their 21-day follow-up period on October 2, at which point Nigeria will officially be Ebola-free.
"Although Nigeria isn't completely out of the woods, their extensive response to a single case of Ebola shows that control is possible with rapid, focused interventions," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a press release. "Countries throughout the region as well as Nigeria need to take rapid steps to prepare for possible cases of Ebola in order to prevent outbreaks in their country."
The latest Ebola outbreak originated in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and traveled to Nigeria only after several hundred people had already been infected in the first three nations. Nearly 3,000 people in those original three countries have died from the viral disease.
But geography isn't the only thing that's minimized the impact of Ebola on Nigeria's population. Part of the reason Nigeria has been able to control the disease so quickly and effectively is that the international community was already heavily involved in the country, training doctors to deal with HIV and polio. Those homegrown physicians were able to quickly refocus their efforts in caring for and quarantining Ebola patients. Nigeria also simply has many more doctors per capita than its West African neighbors do.
Senegal was able to prevent the spread of Ebola after an infected man traveled to the country from Guinea in late August; he was treated and survived. Potential contacts were quickly tracked down and monitored, but no new cases manifested and the country is currently Ebola-free.