It now seems possible -- knock on wood -- that the original outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has been stopped.

The final case in the tangled web of transmission that started in December 2013 might be a baby born in Guinea Oct. 29. The child was delivered in an Ebola treatment center by medical staff wearing personal protective equipment and has since had two consecutive negative tests for Ebola, the latest Nov. 16.

So the child is not infected and there were no contacts to be traced. Dead end. Moreover, all previous cases in Guinea have either recovered or died, and all of their contacts have completed 21 days of surveillance -- the incubation period of Ebola -- without coming down with the virus.

Both Liberia and Sierra Leone have also broken all of the chains of transmission leading back to that 2013 case in Guinea.

But even if the original outbreak is over -- and we'll have to wait a few more weeks to be sure -- that might not be the end.

In the past, a country that had an Ebola outbreak had a 50% chance of another within 2 years, according to World Health Organization assistant director general Bruce Aylward, MD. That's because of re-introduction from the original animal vector.

In West Africa, with thousands of human survivors, it appears animal vectors might not be needed, Aylward told reporters. Indeed, he said, the UN knows of about half a dozen "flares" of Ebola, including an 15-year-old boy in the Liberian capital Monrovia just last week, that appear to be a re-introduction of the virus.

There's "pretty good evidence that we will have to deal with new emergences" of Ebola, he said.

The Liberian investigation is still underway, but it currently appears that the boy had no direct or indirect contact with a person who got Ebola as part of the original outbreak. And that leaves investigators thinking he got the disease in some way from a survivor.

In male survivors, the virus can persist for up to 9 months in semen, which Aylward characterized as potentially an "infectious bodily fluid" that can transmit Ebola from a survivor just like blood, sweat, vomit, and diarrhea in acute cases.

He noted that the transmission does not have to involve sexual contact -- soiled bedclothes might be enough. And the WHO said the boy's brother and father are now diagnosed with Ebola.

The flares so far have been stamped out pretty quickly, Aylward said: no more than eight associated cases and only two or three generations of cases. But that has required intensive surveillance and efficient responses -- something that costs money.

The UN says it needs some $244 million (U.S.) from the end of November through the end of March 2016 to help the three countries maintain their ability to prevent, detect, and respond to such flares.

The agency has about half of that but still needs another $123.4 million, according to David Nabarro, MD, the UN Secretary-General's special envoy for Ebola.

The Ebola horror will end, that much is clear. But it's not over just yet.

On another topic, consider syphilis.

Unlike Ebola, syphilis has been with us for a very long time. Indeed, researchers in Europe have just published evidence that congenital syphilis existed in Europe in pre-Columbian times.

The finding essentially clears Christopher Columbus and his mariners of the charge of having brought the spirochetes back with them from America, a theory that has been the accepted wisdom.

That's all very well -- you go, Chris! Not a stain on your character -- but the question is not where it came from and when but why syphilis is still a problem and indeed why it is a growing problem in the U.S.

The treatment for primary, secondary, and early latent syphilis is a single intramuscular injection of long-acting Benzathine penicillin G. And three shots will cure later stages. That has not changed in decades.

But, the CDC is reporting, the rate of congenital syphilis rose sharply in 2014 to 11.6 cases for every 100,000 live births. That was up 27.5% from the previous year.

In other words, more babies are being born with what is an eminently treatable disease.

Now, that might be a blip, but it's in the context of increasing rates of primary and secondary syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea -- up 15.1%, 2.8%, and 5.1%, respectively, in 2014 over 2013.

Why do I link Ebola and STDs? Because a common thread might be behavior.

In the Ebola outbreak, a key factor in promoting transmission was funeral customs that involved close and unprotected contact with a dead relative or friend. If the dead person had died of Ebola, he or she was about as infectious as it's possible to be.

Similarly, STD transmission involves close and unprotected contact with an infected person.

If millions of people in West Africa can change customs that evolved over centuries to prevent Ebola transmission -- as they have done -- surely we can change our sexual behavior to prevent STDs.