A combination of fear of the Ebola virus, weak public infrastructures in three of the world's poorest countries, and a slow response by the international public health community and world governments is reversing real progress in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
All three have had democratic elections after decades of political instability and conflict and, despite limited national budgets, were building clinics, schools and other essentials for economic development. Ebola – and the reaction to it – threatens to throw all three back into instability – but they are not alone in suffering adverse consequences of Ebola stigma.
The first known Ebola case in west Africa was in the Nzerekore area of Guinea, on the border of Liberia and near the border