Ebola hit West Africa hard last year, but UN Representative Anthony Banbury insists that the outbreak will come to a close in 2015.

The epicenter of the illness, Sierra Leone, will certainly remain a primary focus for healthcare workers.

Banbury told the press, “Going forward it’s going to be extremely hard for us to bring it down to zero [cases], but that is exactly what we will do,” according to BBC News. “I believe we will end Ebola in 2015.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) outlines the guiding principles of Ebola containment: community engagement, safe burial of the dead and pinpointing infected patients alongside their contacts.

Ebola can only spread from person to person through contact with infected bodily fluids, or surfaces that have been contaminated by them. Carriers only become infectious after the onset of symptoms, which appear between 2 and 21 days post-contamination.

Symptoms include muscle pain, fatigue, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and occasionally external or internal bleeding.

Although there is no vaccination for Ebola now, the WHO notes that two potential candidates are being tested, and several drug therapies are in various stages of development.

Healthcare workers are highly susceptible to Ebola infection given their responsibilities handling contaminated surfaces and caring for patients with the virus.

Most recently, an American healthcare worker was transported from Sierra Leone to Nebraska following suspected contact with Ebola, reports the International Business Times. Although symptoms have not appeared yet, the patient will remain in the Omaha hospital’s care until the 21-day incubation period for the virus ends.

Ebola first emerged in 1976 in both Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus reportedly originates from infected wildlife. If eaten raw, without proper food preparation techniques, Ebola enters into the human population. The WHO suggests that fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope, gorillas and porcupines are frequently the source of infections.

The international community was caught off guard with the 2014 Ebola outbreak, but optimism now appears to dominate discussion of the virus.