The U.S. was declared Ebola-free on Monday following the death of the only remaining Ebola patient in the country.

So far, the U.S. has confirmed 10 cases of EVD and, of these cases, there have been two deaths. Confirmed cases of Ebola include those of Dr. Craig Spencer, who was released from his quarantine in New York on Nov. 11, and of Dr. Martin Salia, who died of Ebola on Nov. 17. Salia, a Nebraska resident who had been working in Sierra Leone, his native country, tested positive for the disease on Nov. 10. According to the USA Today on Nov. 17, he was admitted to a specialized biocontainment unit in Nebraska on Nov. 15 and died 36 hours later of cardiac arrest. Since Dr. Salia’s death, the U.S. has been deemed free of EVD.

For a global comparison, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported on Nov. 16 that Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone remain the nations with the most severe Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks. In these three nations alone, Ebola has caused over 5,400 deaths out of about 9,400 laboratory-confirmed cases. Other nations that were initially affected but now have been declared free of the disease include Spain, Senegal and Nigeria.

The recent Ebola epidemic has raised fear over travel to Africa and controversy over government quarantines on travelers. Since the initial outbreaks in the U.S., the government and air traffic officials have employed numerous precautionary measures, such as quarantines and restrictions on air travel for people exhibiting symptoms of EVD, to protect against a potential Ebola epidemic in the U.S.

In the Bay Area, Stanford School of Medicine professor Dr. Colin Bucks, who declined an interview with The Winged Post, recently entered a voluntary quarantine after serving as a medical adviser at a U.S. hospital in Liberia to treat Ebola, but has not been confirmed to have EVD.  

Naman Jindal (11) felt that quarantining is the best line of defense against the spread of Ebola and other diseases.

“I feel that people who come from Ebola regions should be quarantined no more than a few days,” he said. “Part of that is what makes the U.S. more resilient to viral infections.”

With the disease still a cause for concern in Africa, many Americans believe that banning travel between the U.S. and regions with Ebola is the best solution to containing the disease.

Given the success of the quarantining strategy, both Naman and Sunny Jayam (9) believed that closing airports would actually worsen the situation.

“In airports, immigration officers should be able to spot symptoms,” Sunny said. “Shutting down [airports] would damage the economy. It would anger a lot of people who travel to Africa for business.”

Despite the U.S. reportedly becoming Ebola-free, Rishi Narain (11) believes that the risk of a local outbreak still exists.

“I’m still afraid,” he said. “The officials really don’t know [if more cases exist.] There are 300 million people in the country. Anyone could have it.”

On the other hand, Upper School nurse Claire Elchert does not perceive Ebola as a serious threat to the school’s community.

“We’ve had some highly contagious diseases, with H1N1 a few years back,” Elchert said. “We have a protocol for [dealing with contagious infections]. But with Ebola, people are not contagious until they are really very ill. So if we know if there are students or families that have traveled to affected areas, we would have some conversations. But, really, to us here, [getting Ebola is] relatively low risk.”

Although the chance of an outbreak seems relatively bleak given the recent successes of quarantines and air traffic security measures, Ebola remains a problem in West Africa.

According to Ameek Singh (11), with EVD contained, the next step is providing aid for nations where the Ebola epidemic rages on.

“The U.S. should have entered earlier to stop the cause of the disease directly,” Singh said. “But now, we should extend aid out to the African population that has been affected by Ebola [and] we should send doctors to help and continue quarantine.”

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on Nov. 21, 2014.