Ebola has been defeated in Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced it on 7 November, 42 days after the last person who tested positive was examined. The Social Mobilisation Action Consortium (SMAC), which operates in Sierra Leone to combat Ebola through community engagement, celebrated the news by posting a video that went viral on social networks. In Bye Bye Ebola, some of the people who contracted the virus dance alongside those who tried to eradicate it, to the rhythm of Azonto, a hit by Fuse ODG and Itz Tiffany. The Ebola-inspired version of the famous Ghanaian song is by Block Jones featuring Freetown Uncut.

It is not the first time that a West African country has told its own story of fighting Ebola through music. After a new version of Bob Geldof's 1984 track Do They Know It's Christmas? was created in 2014 – widely criticised for perpetuating negative stereotypes about Africa – to bring the Ebola issue to the fore, some of Africa's most celebrated musicians came together to record the song Africa Stop Ebola, launched in October 2014.

The virus struck West Africa between 2014 and the early months of 2015. It caused the deaths of more than 11,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Since May 2014, in Sierra Leone alone, 8,700 people contracted it and came close to death. The WHO explains that a key factor in its spread across West Africa was the fact that Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had never experienced an epidemic of this scale. These countries, among the poorest in the world, had only just recovered from years of civil war and were unable to address all phases of disease containment, from the initial outbreak through to treatment and prevention.

Between September and October 2014, the epidemic reached its peak in Sierra Leone: international partners including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), together with the WHO, the British government and the US government, worked to tackle the problem alongside local communities by ensuring better healthcare facilities and improved burial methods. West African burial practices were identified as one of the main causes of the rapid spread of the virus and accounted for 80 per cent of transmission events, according to the WHO.

In May, the organisation had already announced the disappearance of the disease in Liberia, and thanks to a holistic approach it was possible to halt the epidemic in Sierra Leone too, although Médecins Sans Frontières has stressed that neighbouring Guinea continues to record new cases of infection. "Sierra Leone has reached this milestone thanks to the hard work and commitment in the battle against an Ebola epidemic unprecedented in human history," the WHO commented. Over the next 90 days, the situation in the country will continue to be closely monitored.

In the fight against Ebola, a potentially fatal disease that causes sudden fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and internal and external bleeding, healthcare facilities have been built in Sierra Leone that will help prevent future epidemics. As SMAC's social mobilisation campaign highlights, "Community get di power for tap ebola", the community has the means and the power to combat Ebola. And what better way to celebrate than to dance.

Translated by Francesca Clemente