Ebola Virus Disease (or "Ebola", as commonly known) is
a severe and often fatal viral illness in humans. The recent deadly
outbreak started in Guinea in December 2013, and by March this year
it had spread through West Africa in alarming proportions. On
August 8th, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared
the Ebola crisis an international public health emergency. There
have been serious emergency response plans and action taken by the
involved countries, in a desperate and concerted effort to contain
the disease.
Regretfully, the scale of diffusion of the virus has overtaken
the preventive and containment measures put into practice: in the
deadliest Ebola outbreak so far, every day more people are becoming
infected and more are dying because they cannot get the care they
need1, and fear of infection is having significant
impacts on daily life in the affected regions.
