West African Scientists Warn of Weakening Health Systems Amid Disease Outbreak Risks

In Lomé, Togo, laboratory scientists from across West Africa have raised a collective alarm: the region's capacity to detect and contain disease outbreaks is quietly eroding, even as the pathogens that exploit such gaps have not. Drawing on the hard lessons of Ebola's devastating sweep through Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone between 2014 and 2016, and on the ongoing toll of Bundibugyo and Ebola in Congo, these researchers are urging governments to invest in diagnostic infrastructure and regional cooperation not in the heat of crisis, but in the calm before it — because by the time the next e