Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization's regional director for Africa, said the organization is training more than 10,000 health workers in an attempt to decentralize their response to deal with these different realities.

In Mauritius, the nation's minister of health and wellness, Dr. Kailesh Kumar Singh Jagutpal, said preparation was key to the nation's response, and its apparent success in containing the virus.

That, Health Minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize explained, is part of the strategy — deputize trusted institutions, like churches, to teach South Africans how to live with the virus in the long term.

And in the East African nation of Uganda, which has yet to report any deaths amid its fewer than 300 cases, Health Minister Dr. Jane Aceng said the health system was already well-fortified by other lethal epidemics.

Moeti, the World Health Organization official who said that cases in Africa remain lower than in other parts of the world, said one thing holds true across this continent: The virus doesn't let its guard down in its quest to survive.