Ebola rules

Second, there is little doubt that we need a much greater international response not only of medical teams and supplies but also to provide food for people formally quarantined within towns and villages.

Third, we need community health workers to go to hundreds of remote villages and towns and talk to locals about the risk from ebola and to do so in a manner that shows respect for and understanding of, local traditions. Fourthly, we need to develop far better measures of contact tracing. There is little doubt that the inability to complete contact tracing has been disastrous and is one reason why the disease remains out of control. Fifthly, we need to better understand how ordinary people respond to risk and epidemic threat and perhaps even appoint 'epidemic response managers' to control the war on misinformation and to disseminate information in an understandable and accessible form.

There is little doubt that all the ingredients of a major epidemic catastrophe are fast emerging. The virus is beginning to appear in neighbouring countries and if it eventually penetrates cities like Lagos with millions of inhabitants and vast slums, we may well be looking at a major disaster.

But if we just ignore all this will ebola simply follow the 'epidemic curve' and eventually burn itself out? Quite possibly this might ultimately happen but it may take some time and the human cost may well be severe.