A glimmer of hope

JUST two months ago the bodies of Ebola victims turned away from teeming treatment centres lay dead in the streets of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Now, in those same facilities, many of the beds lie empty. Could the outbreak that has so devastated the country finally be subsiding?

It is too early to say for sure but Bruce Aylward, who leads the World Health Organisation’s response to the Ebola crisis, is cautiously optimistic. The number of new cases in Liberia, which has been hardest hit, appears to be falling. The data are unreliable since many cases go unreported, not least because families are afraid of hospitals. But the trend seems real, says Dr Aylward, citing a levelling-off of lab-confirmed cases and a decline in burials. The Red Cross collected 117 bodies in the last full week of October in and around Monrovia, compared with a peak of 315 a week.