In the past few weeks, the entire world has heard of Guinea’s
Ebola outbreak. Ebola, a deadly virus with a death rate of up to 90% (although
it’s at around 60% here), is honestly a terrifying neighbor. Many Volunteers found
out through friends and family, during concerned calls, texts, and facebook
posts. As per usual, Volunteers were out of the loop on the international news
side. While Peace Corps had its hands tied (though they did quite a bit to
ensure Volunteer safety as we’ll discuss later), it was a bit troubling that
PCVs heard about Ebola through their international connections before their
local connections.
Volunteers have had outbreaks near or at their sites. Some
Volunteers responded to this by barricading themselves at their sites, refusing
to travel. Others were told to stay at the regional capitals temporarily while
policies were being verified.
Perhaps scarier than the idea of Ebola by itself, is the
feeling of distance between Volunteers and their medical support structures.
Even with the best PCMO teams out there, the fact remains that Volunteers often
live in isolated and remote places, and responses to medical problems are never
as certain as calling 911 and expecting an ambulance.
Despite the panic, the reality on the ground is not nearly
so precarious. The death rate is holding steady, at around 80 dead in a country
of 10 million. The truth is, malaria is still far more likely to kill a
Volunteer than Ebola is. The CDC, Doctors Without Borders, the Guinean
Government, and other organizations are all working together to quarantine all
cases, actual and suspected, of Ebola. Isolation is the best tool we have
against a more widespread outbreak. While it’s true that the range of the virus
has been troublingly large, much of the spread has been traced to specific
families that transported their sick and dead. Those families themselves have
been quarantined.
Part of the reason Ebola hasn’t spread that dramatically is
due to its high mortality rate- but part of it is also due to the relative
difficulty involved in catching the virus. It’s not airborne, and probably won’t
be passed through casual contact during the incubation period. Only when the
patient is really sick are they highly contagious. Avoiding the extremely ill
and the deceased puts Volunteers at low risk of catching the deadly disease. Nonetheless,
Peace Corps is closely monitoring the situation, at times instituting travel
restrictions and restrictions on health center work (anything that can bring
Volunteers into proximity with the sick). The main risk to Volunteers actually
comes from hospitals, where proper isolation techniques can be questionable and
the disease can actually spread. If a Volunteer falls ill, perhaps unconscious,
and is taken to a medical center also hosting an Ebola patient, they are at
risk. To ensure a rapid response, an emergency Peace Corps vehicle has been
installed near the Volunteers closest to the outbreaks. Peace Corps Guinea also
invited the CDC to analyze their Ebola response plan- the CDC recommended no
changes. Don’t worry- we’re being taken care of!
Guinean responses to the outbreak vary. In the villages,
little has changed. Ebola hasn’t taken on a menacing reality yet. The
government’s texts encouraging hand washing have boosted some PCV hand washing
projects- not much else has changed (except for those public health Volunteers
who can’t go to work).
In Conakry though, paranoia has taken root. People are
washing their hands with pure bleach. I even saw a Guinean using hand sanitizer-
I had no idea it existed in Guinea (outside of Volunteer care packages). The
high vigilance towards hygiene can’t be a bad thing. Hopefully it will persist
after the epidemic passes away, as it will.
