Ebola Terror

I came to Sierra Leone in 2008 with Winston to try our hand at building a life here.  It is now 2014 and we have two children and are expecting a third.  We live in Bo which is about 60 miles away from Kenema (one of the epicenters of the virus.)

I wanted to write a post to let people know what is going on here on the ground and give a little insight as to what it is like to be here with the threat of Ebola looming so close to my family.  I know that in the last week the news of it has blown up internationally and so I do not need to explain to anyone what it is and how horrific it can be, for those who don't know I have put some good links at the end of the post which can tell you all you need to know.

I heard about the virus outbreak in around May when I was trawling the internet for West African news, now initially I was pretty scared - I saw the 1994 Dustin Hoffman film 'Outbreak!'  I began to tell those people who are close to us about it and advise them to stop eating bush meat especially monkey. Most people laughed at the name of the virus and the way their friends mispronounced it, my friend Elvis said 'well the bush meat (monkey, antelope, deer, monkey etc) cannot speak for itself when we eat too much of it so maybe Ebola has come to speak for it.'  No one I spoke to had heard about the virus before and were unconcerned about it's spread.

CDC map of the distribution of the virus - we live in Bo

Posters started to appear about Ebola at doctors surgeries and around town, a Nigerian (or Nollywood) film was released about it - I have not had the pleasure of watching it and I am unlikely to do so, for anyone who has seen a one of these films will understand entirely I am sure, they are loud, poorly acted and terribly produced.  But it began to creep into the public consciousness amid joking warnings about staying away from Guineans coming into the country.

Then we started to hear about the first cases in Kailahun and we knew it was in the country.  Most people still didn't believe it and here are just some of the things I have heard from people's mouths about the outbreak:

• 'It is not real, like HIV it is made up.  They tell you how easy it is to get HIV and I have slept with hundreds of women without condoms and have never got it.'
• 'Ebola is just Europeans trying to get body parts of Africans to sell in Europe.'
• 'There is an election in 2 years so politicians are collecting body parts now for their campaign witchcraft.'
•  'It is ethnic cleansing of the Mende people' (because it is predominantly in the south which is where the Mende mostly reside)
• 'The crisis will end on 27th August.'
• 'A woman had a dream that the Ebola outbreak is a curse brought on by women.'

 One day my daughter, Thea (who is 4) came home from school and recalled to me that they had been told at school by her teachers that some nurses had gone to a school and killed some children by giving them an injection for Ebola.  You may say that a 4 year old is likely to get something like this confused, but what she was told was confirmed to me when I heard it on the lips of all the school children and more and more adults over the next few days.  I later learned that the truth of the story was in fact that some nurses went to a school to give scheduled immunisations for something else entirely. The students ran away from the school (I am sure to add some drama to their day rather than through fear.)  Later the parents of these children went to the school shouting at the teachers and complaining that someone was trying to kill their kids.  My prevailing thought was, in what context is it ever OK to tell this kind of story to children of three and four?

My experience of being here is that people have a flair for the dramatic and like to elaborate or to 'flavour' stories with their own information so trying to get accurate information is very difficult.  I have been relying on some friends who have contacts within The Red Cross and other charities to get accurate numbers because, that is another thing, before it really became international news the local radio was reporting that the death rate was around 50 and the Center for Disease Control (CDC -Centre for Disease Control Website) were reporting figures closer to 100.
The president has declared a Public Health Emergency but to be honest getting information as to what this means is difficult.  The most coherent explanation I have been able to get is as follows:

• The 'epicenters' of the virus are Kailahun and Kenema.  These area are to be quarantined which means that people in these towns will not be allowed to leave and this will be enforced by the police and the military. Medical staff with the support of the military will go house to house to check for people with Ebola symtoms who will be removed for testing.
• Bo is not currently quarantined but should any more cases arise from the town, it will be.
• Countrywide there is to be a ban on public gatherings, this includes churches, mosques, markets, schools etc - the details of this are to be confirmed.
• Monday 7th August is to be a 'stay at home' day for reflection and prayer.

I have read a lot of information about Ebola since the outbreak began and really, I do not feel that vulnerable to contracting the virus.  We as a family are probably better placed to avoid contraction that most people in the country and for that we are blessed.  My fear now is how people will react, especially in the quarantined areas.  The next week or so will give a good indication though once they start to do the house to house checks.  I have to say I think that it is really the best way forward and the best one that the government had.

This is a scary time for us, one of the worst things to have to do in this situation is to plan for the worst and prepare the answers to very difficult questions in your own head, like; what do I do if one of my children contracts the virus? How could I make my 2 year old son understand that I cannot go near him? How could he understand that I have to leave him in an isolation centre with strangers when he is so ill? I hope and pray that I never have to face these questions but they are a reality for almost every mother and father in the region right now.

We have stocked up on a few essentials, like rice, just in case.  Winston went to town to do this on Friday and it was interesting to me.  The people that sell rice in Bo (and most of the country) are the Lebanese.  They are generally the richest people here, in one of the poorest countries in the world and what did they do the day the President declared a medical emergency?  They increased their prices by the hour throughout the day.  OK, so this is basic economics but it still galls me that some of the poorest people in the world should have to suffer further in these circumstances.

The last word really has to go to those medical and support staff who are here to help in this dire situation.  Can you imagine leaving the safety of your own country to enter such a perilous situation, frankly I can’t.  Until now I had never given much thought to that, but now I appreciate the sacrifice that they are making.  The people working for Medicins sans Frontiers (MSF) or Doctors without Borders, Samaritans Purse, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and all those who have come here to help, you are frankly heroic.  It seems some of these people have faced hostility and in some instances violence from people here, and still you have stayed. I can’t say I would have done the same, thank you.


So here we are now, planning for the worst but hoping for the best :)

• http://descrier.co.uk/news/world/ebola-treatment-centre-look-like/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ebola-treatment-centre-look-like
• http://time.com/3063174/ebola-sierra-leone-africa-emergency/
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/10996512/Ebola-is-terrifying-and-proves-how-unprepared-we-are-for-epidemics.html
• http://www.cdc.gov