The international response to West Africa's Ebola epidemic, coupled with more effective action by local communities, has stopped the exponential spread of the disease in one of the hardest-hit countries, Liberia, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. In confirming what health officials and news organizations had reported for weeks, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said that a previous worse-case projection by the agency that the Ebola epidemic could lead to 1.4 million cases by late January unless effective measures were taken to contain it was no longer applicable, crediting what he called "good progress" in Liberia. "There's been a substantial change in the trend," Dr. Frieden said during a conference call with reporters. "There is no longer exponential increase, and in fact, there's been a decrease" in the rate of infections in Liberia. Health officials are less certain of the rate of infections in Guinea, another of the three most affected countries. Dr. Frieden said that in the third country, Sierra Leone, "both their epidemic and their response are several weeks behind Liberia." He added that he hoped an increase in international aid to Sierra Leone, particularly from Britain, would help bring down the numbers there as well.
