http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...g-ebola-health-workers-west-africa?CMP=twt_gu
Working as a doctor in
Sierra Leone a couple of months ago I was showered in flattery. Not just me, all of us. A team of “selfless heroes”, out in the midst of the worst public health emergency in living memory, trying to assist the communities collapsing around us. After arriving back in the UK, I had more invitations than I could ever have taken up. The public thirst to hear first-hand what it’s like “over there” was unquenchable.
I write this on my journey back to Sierra Leone, where, despite all the pleas my colleagues and I made, we at
Médecins Sans Frontières are still among very few responders on the ground. Big promises are still waiting to become realities. As I was preparing to leave I became aware of an uncomfortable shift in public opinion. Western introspective paranoia about
Ebola suddenly reaching our shores was competing with sympathy for the plight of the actual people suffering. And me? I am no longer the selfless hero, but the selfish vector.
...
So in the interest of some basic health promotion, here are the facts. Again.
• Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with body fluids.
• An individual is only contagious when symptomatic and unwell, not during the incubation period.
• The virus itself is weak, surviving for only a short time outside the body, and can be eradicated with simple measures like soap, bleach, heat and sunlight.
We are living in frightening times, all of us. Knowledge is power, so let’s arm ourselves appropriately. Hysteria and paranoia will only be counter-productive in achieving the one thing that we all want: to end this epidemic.
