Christmas Day passes uneventfully. We are reminded at the morning Command and Control meeting that Ebola does not take a holiday, although in Moyamba apparently it does.

The house-to-house searching prior to Christmas identified no cases. Numbers of referrals remain low. All the evidence points to a petering out of the epidemic outside Freetown.

This is great news, though having just set up a 100 bed treatment centre I have to suppress my evil-villain-with-a-hand-wringing-demonic-laugh desire for more Ebola. Having seen the suffering it causes, I am of course delighted. This is a great festive gift of life.

I am coming to the end of my trip. The NGOs call these international attachments missions - an odd reclamation of an old word for religious colonisation. The entire international aid community appears to have descended on this country and I wonder what the nationals think about this new colonial invasion with good intentions in place of guns and germs.

I am familiar with the international aid community in my previous global health work, but I have never experienced such a dense concentration. They are easy enough to spot in Sierra Leone - as anyone who is white is involved in the Ebola response. The business people left months ago and will return slowly and cautiously to make money when they get a cast-iron all-clear guarantee.

I have learnt much on my mission. Most of all I have learnt that this war on Ebola has been fought by Africans and that the blood that has been shed is African blood. We have arrived late into this battle, and ended up as stretcher bearers rather than fighters.

The real heroes of this emergency are the Sierra Leonean health care workers who have stood bravely on the front line while we have watched from a safe distance, frozen by caution and fear.

In Kenema when the epidemic first arrived, 23 out of the 24 nurses working at the hospital were infected with Ebola, and 22 of them died, as did the country’s only experienced infectious disease doctor, ambulance drivers and lab technicians.

This was the health service’s Chernobyl for the Ebola epidemic. The health care system retaliated with beautifully simple but remarkably effective designs to protect themselves and their patients. These early Heath Robinson Ebola units have been the frontier forts defending communities against the relentless attacks from Ebola.

The West’s response was too late to the starting line with and probably over-engineered at the finish. Our Ebola Treatment Centres are undoubtedly too big and too clever. However, when they were commissioned in September the predictions for Ebola were 1.4 million casualties by January, so it would have been a brave decision back then to build fewer beds. And of course the centres are just one link in our chain of support. We have worked hard to support the behavioural change and social mobilisation programmes, safe burials, surveillance and logistics.

I have learnt much about the challenges of complex international collaborations in an emergency setting. We have made many mistakes in this response. I am sure lessons will be carefully documented, quietly forgotten and then inevitably repeated.

These are such simple, common-sense lessons: good leadership; clear organisational structures and boundaries; listening to the staff on the front line; harnessing their talent and creativity; managing with a light touch and positive stroking. These lessons are as true for an international emergency as for an NHS hospital.

There is an old African proverb: if you want to go fast then go alone; if you want to go far then go together. We have gone fast and far in these past few weeks. Now it is time for me to go home.

I am reticent about returning to my daily routines in the UK. I love my job but I know it will be difficult to sit through the next committee meeting with the same level of engagement as before.

I miss my wife and family, but I am already feeling choked about not being able to touch and hug them as I step through the door after six weeks away.

I hope this blog has provided a glimpse into this Ebola emergency. I have been deeply touched with the kindness and support I have received since I have been here, truly none of which I deserve. I am just a fleeting shadow, an amanuensis recording a remarkable tale of one country’s struggle against a devastating and malevolent foe.

All praise, respect, admiration and acclaim goes to the people of Sierra Leone who have suffered, rallied and are now close to victory. Lions on the mountain.

MORE BLOG POSTS FROM PROFESSOR JOHN WRIGHT