#6 The Danger in Losing Sight of Ebola Victims' Humanity

The author of this article was in Sierra Leone when the Ebola outbreak took place first in Western Guinea. He was invited to be part of the first meetings of the Kono District Ebola Response Task Force. He was there when the Ebola epidemic started and he was part of trying to stop it from spreading. He reports how the fast spread of this horrible disease was due to lack of education of the people of the area. They did not know what it was and even thought the authorities were lying about the disease to send away family members. He explains how they received news after news of how the disease was spread from one place to the other. The area lacks not only hospitals and equipment but people (doctors and nurses) to take care of the victims of this disease. There is not much that can be done over there. The spread of news and information is very limited , they require people (volunteers) to go from house to house, village to village, to tell what it is, how to treat it and how to prevent it from spreading. This disease  is a very cruel one that kills in very little time. It is reported that 90 % of the people with this disease dies and so the effort to contain it was very emphasized in the meetings. The disease was very feared by everyone in the room and they did not want it to get to the point to reach Sierra Leone. It was sad to read that these people did not even know what it was and that they should take some measures to try to prevent it. In the end of the article, the disease has reached Sierra Leone and the author is about to leave it by plane. It is interesting to see how he felt scared that he might have it even though it is impossible. I guess this fear would be there for every single human being showing we are all fragile to death.
I believe the author was successful with this article. He wanted to tell us about his experience there in Sierra Leone and how the spread started. He gives us the perspective of the leaders that were supposed to think of a way to prevent the outbreak. We can see the people's challenges and difficulties in this poor country with a  culture with lots of variety.THe author gives us the information from his perspective as a member of that meeting responsible for the "general health" of the country. The real specific stories helped the story be more personal and see the author's feelings towards the subject. It was sad to see the reality of the place and the author's writing got me into it... So much that I was willing to read a 3 page article when I was only required to read 1 !
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/the-danger-in-losing-sight-of-ebola-victims-humanity/378945/