Migrations in West Africa seen as Challenge to Stopping Ebola

In much of West Africa, the annual harvest ends around October, and in the following months, countless young men hit the road to look for work elsewhere, such as on cocoa and coffee plantations in Ivory Coast or in fishing ports on the coast, according to people who know the region.

That post-harvest migration is a prime example of the high mobility of the region's population. National borders are porous and don't mean a whole lot, and people cross them freely, by all accounts. And that fact worries some observers who are pondering the challenge of stopping the Ebola epidemic simmering in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.