Identifying the infected and those they’ve touched, and isolating them to break the transmission chain are all but impossible in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown as well as the jungles of Guinea, says Jordan Tappero, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s second-in-command for the regional response.
The new surge of Ebola in Sierra Leone follows a devastating one in Monrovia two months ago. Such a furious spread is something disease trackers say they’ve never seen in the 38 years since the virus was first identified.
“This is kind of unprecedented or uncharted territory for (fighting) Ebola,” Tappero says, particularly in the congested streets of Freetown. “When you get these large urban outbreaks, there’s just too many people. Contact tracing teams can’t track everybody.”
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