The billboard depicts a masked health worker in a biohazard suit looming over a bed-ridden patient. Above them, bright red letters warn commuters on a busy Abidjan street that "The Ebola risk is always there".

As Cote d'Ivoire campaigns to fend off an Ebola outbreak ravaging neighboring West African states, such grim reminders of the catastrophe unfolding across its western border are everywhere.

The worst recorded outbreak of the virus has killed over 2,400 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, wreaking havoc on their fragile economies, and has also spread to Nigeria and Senegal.