The lack of trust between communities and health systems has been cited by the World Health Organization as a significant factor in fueling West Africa’s Ebola epidemic. Many communities did not follow officially recommended practices—such as safe funeral and burial rites. Others did not cooperate with contact tracing ‒ identifying people who may have been close to an infected person.

Ebola-affected countries and those on the periphery, including Cote d’Ivoire, are actively working to prevent another disaster. A key step is improving the governance of their health sectors to make them more resilient.  Poor governance has been cited as both the cause and effectof weak health systems and corruption is seen as a major deterrent to people using the health system.