--- title: Ebola Fighters Say Now is Not the Time to Let Up description: Cases may be nearing zero in certain areas, but the threat of the disease lingers canonical: https://time.com/3825471/ebola-fighters-not-let-up/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-16T18:39:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:15.762Z article:section: Health og:title: Ebola Fighters Say Now Is Not the Time to Let Up og:description: Cases are nearing zero in some areas, but the threat of the disease lingers og:url: https://time.com/3825471/ebola-fighters-not-let-up/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd769c0d8ce778d4/6987eb7e06f2c10f32337c47/obama-ebola-talk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5582 og:image:height: 3140 og:image:alt: Barack Obama, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Alpha Condé og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ebola Fighters Say Now Is Not the Time to Let Up twitter:description: Cases are nearing zero in some areas, but the threat of the disease lingers twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd769c0d8ce778d4/6987eb7e06f2c10f32337c47/obama-ebola-talk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ebola Fighters Say Now Is Not the Time to Let Up > Sponsored content. 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Hundreds of doctors, nurses and health workers work every day to treat and contain the outbreak in the hot zone_ by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Apr 16, 2015 6:39 PM UTC  President Barack Obama, flanked by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, left, and Guinean President Alpha Condé, speaks in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April 15, 2015, to discuss the progress made in the international Ebola response. President Barack Obama, flanked by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, left, and Guinean President Alpha Condé, speaks in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April 15, 2015, to discuss the progress made in the international Ebola response. Manuel Balce Ceneta—AP by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Apr 16, 2015 6:39 PM UTC There were only 37 confirmed cases of Ebola last week, just a year after the deadly virus was spreading quickly across Western Africa. But key stakeholders in the effort to reduce the number of cases to zero said Thursday that success is not guaranteed. “We are dealing now with the most difficult areas,” said Bruce Aylward, the assistant director-general of polio and emergencies at the World Health Organization. “We’re dealing with issues of fear, of trust with communities that have been marginalized. That have not been fully engaged.” Alyward added, “These are issues that take time to resolve.” What’s more, the most affected areas are nearing their annual rainy season in April and May, which could exacerbate the disease’s spread. And, Alyward says, the eradication effort is running out of money. “The only thing that’s falling faster than this graphic right here,” he said, holding up a chart that showed new confirmed cases, “is the one that shows you new financial contributions.” The message on Thursday was clear: in the fight against Ebola, there’s no room for complacency. That’s not to say there hasn’t been progress. There has been a decline in new cases over the past several weeks and Liberia is inching closer to zero cases. In Sierra Leone, there were nine cases this past week and the week before. In Guinea, the situation is more mixed—there were 28 cases this week, up from 21 the week before. In an effort to keep numbers low, the government instituted a four-day stay-at-home policy in the most infected area so that teams can go to homes and share information. Alyward, who joined WHO Director General Margaret Chan and others for a roundtable briefing at the United Nations Foundation on Thursday, said it’s important to keep up the fight, because if a single case or contact is missed, the community will suffer the consequences. That message was similar to one that President Obama reiterated before meeting with leaders from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea at the White House on Wednesday. “We can’t be complacent. This virus is unpredictable,” Obama said. “We have to be vigilant, and the international community has to remain fully engaged in a partnership with these three countries until there are no cases of Ebola in these countries.” Presidents from the three countries will also appear Friday with World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim to discuss the continued effort to get to zero. The meetings and appearances on the Ebola effort come in the wake of a scathing [New York _Times_ ](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/world/africa/idle-ebola-clinics-in-liberia-are-seen-as-misstep-in-us-relief-effort.html?%5Fr=0)report that said the U.S.’s response to the crisis was too much, too late. Few of the treatment centers the U.S. military spent resources and manpower to complete have been put to use, the report found. David Nabarro, who has organized the UN’s response to Ebola, said Thursday the American response should be commended. “This immediate and rapid response by the U.S. to use military to build treatment centers was amazing,” he said. “Instead of feeling abandoned by the world, they felt there was a group who believed they were worth supporting.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I have spent five weeks in Liberia over the past three months [ NOISE ] reporting on an outbreak of Ebola that, in the words of one Liberian doctor I met, threatened to erase his country from the map of Africa. Guys, look out. Ebola is a devastating disease [ NOISE ] and the reporting was both heart wrenching and horrifying. Have you touched him? Don't touch him. But for every time I wrote about rising death tolls, I met extraordinary men and women who risked everything from disease to distrust and even death, to stop Ebola from taking more lives. Ebola is very scary. You have to have courage. [ MUSIC ] One of the heights of Ebola. There was nowhere for anyone to go. There's dead bodies on the ground. [ MUSIC ] These are their stories. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ] [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] Being a doctor in Liberia is just sacrificial from beginning to end. You're not making anything. It's almost like a volunteer job. That's not [ UNKNOWN ]. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] My first experience as an Ebola patient the lab technician walked in with a spacesuit and I mean, he was taking every precaution not to touch and not to get infected himself. I could see the fear in his eyes. Eyes. [ MUSIC ] When the test results came back that evening and I was told that I was Ebola positive, something strange happened. I relaxed, okay, because I was happy it was not malaria. [ MUSIC ] Luckily we got. A place at Elwa Treatment Center, where they found a spot. Sadly, somebody had just passed and I was going to take their spot. Interestingly, they put me into a room where I had the guy who we assume I got the infection from. Lying right, right next to me. [ MUSIC ] At one time I was hiccupping with every breath, so they thought I, I, I wasn't gonna make it. And they were even discussing whether I would be cremated or buried. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] I'm thankful to just be alive, because with such a close call, I consider myself like somebody who has come back from the dead. [ APPLAUSE ] [ NOISE [ My name is Katie Meyler and I'm the founder of More Than Me. [ MUSIC ] I wasn't really afraid for our girls or for More Than Me because it was in Lofa County, it was far away. And who is Esther? Where's Esther? [ MUSIC ] Eventually, it hit JFK Hospital, which is one of the main hospitals here in the capital, and that's when people started to get afraid. Everyone's thinking, if this thing gets to West Point, the country's in trouble, because it's the most densely populated area in West Africa. [ MUSIC ] So we got this ambulance specifically for West Point. And we pull up to Redemption Hospital and there pulling dead bodies out of Redemption. Doesn't seem like people are moving fast enough and like everyone has accepted. It feels like their families have accepted their death. [ MUSIC ] In this crazy scene of death and dying and dead bodies, and screaming and crying and mourning. Is this cute little three to four year old girl with her pink party dress on just sitting on the steps of this ambulance with no symptoms of Ebola. Do you wanna doll baby? Yeah, I'll bring you one. My name Katie. Nice to meet you. I love you. Her mom died and now the girl had nowhere to go. [ MUSIC ] Guideon. Yeah? Please, please keep her safe away from harm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I [ CROSSTALK ]. This was going on all over the place. I mean, I started to see it more and more. And she was the first child I got close to. And I was like, she cannot stay at Redemption Hospital cuz if this girl, she might have Ebola, she might not. If she doesn't have it, she's definitely gonna get it and most likely she'll die because there's no help here are Redemption. [ NOISE ] So that's what this house became. It was called Housing Observation and Pediatric Evaluation for 21 days. Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] So that was the first child. And one of the nurses brought her here. [ FOREIGN ] But only for like extreme emergencies, where like kids literally would be homeless. Laugh. [ LAUGH ] My name is Foday Galla. I happen to be the supervisor of the district number 13 ambulances. [ MUSIC ] And I believe it was my calling so once I'm called to do this, I always love to help people. [ MUSIC ] You have to have passion. You have to have feelings. You have to have care. [ MUSIC ] I actually got sick trying to help a family of eight. [ MUSIC ] That I really tried to help, but seven of them had to lose their life to the Ebola virus. [ NOISE ] [ UNKNOWN ] The worst part was that people that I moved in with in the ETU, they died. They died right before my eyes. [ NOISE ] So I feel good picking up people and driving them to the centers and seeing them coming out. So this is why, this is the reason why. Why I really love to help to take people to the center, have them treated, and have them come home to their families. [ MUSIC ] Hello. What I went through in life, some of those things have had impact on. Dr. Brown. My desire to help, to relieve people out of their suffering. There is a family of nine, nine. I think there were about 14 that got infected. And out of the 14, we have. Nine survivors. There are a lot of things I've really learned from this outbreak. One of which is being able to look around yourself and see what you can use that's available. To find a remedy to the situation. Than just sitting and waiting for a remedy from outside. What's in your power, how you can make use of what's available. [ MUSIC ] My name's Ella Watson- Stryker. I'm working with MSF as a health promoter, that means that my job is primarily focused on making sure that people have the information they need about Ebola. When you have countries where there is no functioning disease surveillance system, it means that a virus can circulate for months in a rural area without anyone noticing. Wasn't until a doctor was infected and died that someone started to say, wait a minute, this is not normal, we need to investigate. [ MUSIC ] This is something that we allow to happen. It will continue in this way until better systems are put in place. And if anything comes out of this outbreak, I hope, it's that we learn how to be better at looking for, at health status in rural and urban communities, both. In areas where people don't have good access to healthcare. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] When. [ MUSIC ] We started having survivors here at the unit. Then people started coming to the E. T. U. in large numbers. What is your total number of releases? I know you are in one of those units that have released more people. Total number of releases. I know we have more than [ MUSIC ] I'm doing it because if I wasn't here on the ground, doing my job, I would be in the US reading newspapers and saying someone needs to be doing something. I thought my whole life I had nothing. And here are people who don't have drinking water or a hospital in their villages. And I wanted to help, you know? And regardless of your religion, I think that like, I know for sure like even if I died during Ebola, at least I lived for something I believed in. Can you smile? [ LAUGH ] Somebody has to. To do the job. I'm looking at it like we're fighting a war. And we all have to play our part, and I just feel that it's a duty, that I have to go back. Okay, until we can get rid of it entirely. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. 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