According to a report in The New York Times, the Ebola virus has been spreading because African governments did not take quarantine efforts seriously, especially in regions where it is customary to touch dead bodies before the funeral. Those who came in contact with Ebola victims were not ordered to be quarantined; some who handled dead bodies of Ebola victims were allowed to even potentially contaminate communal water supplies.
Not surprisingly, the virus spread.
The New York Times notes that the Ebola outbreak was “first identified in March in Guinea’s remote Forest Region:”
Since then, it has spread with a deadly swiftness, spilling over porous borders in one of the poorest parts of Africa. The epidemic also leapfrogged by air after an American working in Liberia flew to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and died there last week. On Monday, Nigerian news media reported that a doctor who treated him had contracted the disease as well.
Read more at The New York Times.