Health Workers in Guinea are continuing to address the needs of Western Africa in the response to the Ebola virus.
Ebola is still relevant. This past week, the World Health Organization reported 132 new cases of Ebola in West Africa. The previous week, there were 99 additional cases. Though Liberia is now free of the virus, Sierra Leone and Guinea are still finding new cases. Further, survivors of the Ebola virus face the result of societal fear towards the virus.
Dr. Craig Spencer, the U.S. doctor who tested positive for Ebola in New York back in October of 2014, expressed his concern over the treatment of Ebola, both physically and socially. Dr. Spencer published an article last Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine describing his work with Ebola patients in West Africa, as well as the implications of the Ebola virus back at home.
“For many politicians, the current Ebola epidemic ended on November 4, 2014, the day of midterm elections … For the U.S. media, it ended a week later, when I walked out of Bellevue Hospital and the country was officially Ebola-free. But the real Ebola epidemic still rages in West Africa. The number of new cases is stabilizing in some areas and declining in others, but more than 23,000 people have been infected, and many are still dying from this disease,” wrote the doctor.
“Ebola is frightening not just because of its high fatality rate, but also because of how little we know about it. We cannot explain exactly what it does to our bodies, nor tell patients who survive it how it may affect them in the future. Nevertheless, when I was at the treatment center, I was fueled by compassion and the immense challenge of caring for patients with Ebola. I'd never felt so deeply that my decisions could have a measurable impact on other people's lives.”
Dr. Spencer, an Ebola survivor, recently published an article describing the need to combat Ebola and control the fear surrounding it.
When he returned to his home in Manhattan, the doctor was diagnosed with Ebola. Dr. Spencer showed great caution and went to the hospital at the first sign of symptoms: a rise in body temperature. Despite the situation being under control, media sources heavily publicized his diagnosis and fear became prevalent.
“I understand the fear that gripped the country after I fell ill, because I felt it on a personal level. People fear the unknown, and fear in measured doses can be therapeutic and inform rational responses, but in excess, it fosters poor decision making that can be harmful,” wrote the doctor.
“Instead of being welcomed as respected humanitarians, my U.S. colleagues who have returned home from battling Ebola have been treated as pariahs.”
Currently, health care workers are still in West Africa helping patients battle the Ebola virus. Their work has brought victories against the epidemic in Liberia, which discharged its last confirmed case of Ebola in the country yesterday. Further, vaccines as well as more efficient means of testing for the virus provide improved means of preventing, diagnosing, and treating the disease. Though the immediate objective for most health workers was to combat the virus, they are also looking for the long-term assistance that many West African countries need, such as stable health care systems that can respond to such outbreaks in the future.
Despite the advances made against th virus, fear towards Ebola is still prevalent in West Africa. Though Liberia is no longer directly infected with Ebola, many residents fear that they may still contract the virus. As a result, a majority of the children do not attend school in fear of contracting the disease despite government campaigns to restart the education system.
“I know how real the fear of Ebola is, but we need to overcome it. We all lose when we allow irrational fear, fueled in part by prime-time ratings and political expediency, to supersede pragmatic public health preparedness,” wrote Dr. Spencer.
