In fight to stop Ebola, Nigeria got right everything that America got wrong

That WHO announcement reveals an organization that seems to be in disbelief. In a situation assessment, WHO called it a “spectacular success story” that prevented “potentially the most explosive Ebola outbreak imaginable.”

So how did Nigeria, a country with poor public-health infrastructure and a GDP of $510 billion, manage to contain the disease when the United States, a country with sophisticated public- health infrastructure and a GDP of $17.3 trillion, could not?

First, a bit of luck: Nigeria’s “patient zero,” a man from Liberia, collapsed in a Lagos airport, making it easier to identify those exposed to the disease.