Ebola in 2015

The incumbent head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) Anthony Banbury told DW their chief task when the mission was created was to "identify everything that was required to bring this multifaceted crisis to an end."

At the mission's headquarters in Accra, Ghana, a staff of 30 coordinate efforts to contain the deadly Ebola epidemic.

Their initial analysis revealed that trained medical workers were the chief priority - and the hardest to obtain.

"It's difficult to get them in the numbers we need," Banbury said.

UNMEER has been working with governments and the private sector to bring the disease under control. Spokesperson Fatimata Lejeune describes progress as steady but unremarkable. She said a worrying number of people were infected with the disease and too many people had already died from it. Nonetheless "the rate of transmission has gone down in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. At least in the worst affected areas of each of the countries we are seeing fewer cases," she said.

'Quickest UN deployment'

As well as a staff of 30 in Accra, UNMEER has a further 118 deployed in its offices in those three countries hit hardest by the virus. Lejeune said their clear objective was zero cases of new infection.

"It's the only way Ebola can be fought. Even if there is one case left, it's a danger, it's a risk for people in the community" she said.

Shortly after the Ebola crisis first erupted in March 2014, there was criticism of international organizations for failing to respond to it fast enough. But Anthony Banbury appears to have gone some way towards assuaging the critics. Ghanaian President Johan Mahama commended him with the words: "It has been the quickest UN deployment I have ever seen."

New African UNMEER head

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, a Mauritanian national, succeeds Banbury as head of UNMEER in January. He is currently serving as the number two at the UN mission in Libya and has worked for various UN development and humanitarian agencies in Syria, Yemen, Kenya and Georgia.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed's appointment was announced by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in mid-December.

Figures released by the World Health Organization on December 24, 2014 said that the Ebola death toll had risen to 7,588 and the number of confirmed cases of infection stood at 19,497.

The Ebola virus spreads through contact with an infected person or corpse. Family members who care for patients or people who prepare victims for burial are at risk.