(Bloomberg) — New Ebola infections in west Africa, the epicenter of the disease outbreak, have dropped in places where U.S. and British aid workers encourage safe burial practices, according to Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Power recently returned from a tour of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where Ebola has infected about 13,500 people, killing almost 5,000. In an interview on CBS's “Face the Nation,” Power said that 90% of people in Liberia's capital Monrovia are now safely burying the dead, while in Sierra Leone almost 100% are buried properly.

She credited the improvement to efforts by U.S. and British troops and aid workers to direct treatment and monitor burials.

“The rate of improvement in safe burial came over a four- or five-day period just because of the injection of command and control, frankly, by the United States and by the British and the Sierra Leonean context,” Power said. “More and more people are getting educated.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that 50% to 70% of new infections occur during burial of people killed by Ebola because their body fluids still have the virus.

There were 2,966 confirmed or suspected new cases of Ebola in west Africa in the 21-day period ending Oct. 27, according to the World Health Organization.

Monitoring Symptoms

Power said she will monitor herself for symptoms of the virus for three weeks, the longest period Ebola can incubate in the body. She also said the U.S. is unlikely to match a policy enacted by the Canadian government which banned travelers from the region, and that Canada's move hadn't appeared to increase the number of travelers entering the U.S.

She said that to prevent the outbreak from spreading in the U.S., more health-care personnel should be traveling to and from affected countries in Africa.

“We need to make sure that we incentivize these extraordinary individuals to go into the region and we welcome them and treat them with great respect and appreciation when they come home,” Power said.

–With assistance from David Lerman in Washington.

Special Reports /

Safer burials help curb Ebola in Africa

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