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If you think the fight against Ebola is going well, here's a grim new number: 537.
That's how many new infections were reported in Sierra Leone in the past week. It's the highest weekly tally in any country since the West African outbreak began.
International governments and aid groups have scrambled to open Ebola treatment centers in the country. But, because of safety concerns, many of these centers are accepting only a fraction of the number of patients they were built to serve.
In the meantime, most sick people are being directed to makeshift, government-run centers. Some of these are simply schools or other government buildings repurposed into a "community care center" ? a place for people with Ebola symptomsto be isolated.
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These community care centers ? and larger holding centers ? were originally conceived of as temporary triage posts. Health officials intended them to be places where people who might have Ebola could be isolated while they waited for an Ebola test result. If the test came back positive, then a person would be sent onto a proper treatment facility.
But right now, there's no better place to go. So sick people are getting stuck at these triage centers.
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But a few miles down the road, at a holding center, I met Dr. Corrado Conceda, with the aid group Partners In Health. He thinks it's unacceptable that so many Sierra Leoneans will have to die while waiting for the international response to scale up.
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Conceda has begun turning this existing holding center into a full-fledged treatment facility, with IVs. He's also bringing in medical workers from overseas and trainers in a matter of days, not weeks.
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