Twenty-one days: the maximum incubation period for Ebola Virus Disease. That means if you have come into contact with the virus but have no symptoms by day twenty two, then you are clear.

Forty two days: the incubation period x 2, and the period it takes for a country to be officially considered clear of the disease. If no new suspected cases are reported for 42 days, the outbreak is over.

Today, Wednesday 13th August 2014, is a big day for me ... it has been twenty-one days since I left Liberia, and for the first time I know beyond a doubt that I am Ebola-free. Not everyone is so lucky. In my first 14 days of incubation in the comfort of my Southampton home, the number of cases in Liberia more than doubled from 249 on 23rd July to 554 on 6th August. Of these cases, 294 people had died. The country is in a state of emergency, schools are closed, roads are blocked, communities are quarantined and attempts to bring the disease under control are being crippled by widespread fear.

So for another 21 days I am going to write a blog post every day to raise awareness of the grim challenge confronting Liberians, and to raise funds to support the Red Cross, who I work with collaboratively in my normal life as a PhD social researcher, and who are at the front line fighting the worst known Ebola outbreak in history.

Wednesday 13 August 2014

Introducing Liberia

When I chose Liberia as the field site for my sociology PhD research earlier this year, it wasn't uncommon for friends to hesitate, before asking, “Where exactly is that?”  Those friends and family who knew a little more of the place would ask, “Is it safe now?”  They knew that just over ten years ago Liberia came to the end of a devastating civil war, which took a country that once stormed ahead in measures of development and placed it firmly back at the bottom of the pile – 175th, to be precise, of the 187 countries included in the 2014 Human Development Index produced by the UN.

Three weeks ago I was in Liberia doing the final planning and preparation for my PhD data collection, with help from my collaborators in the Red Cross.  One of the first things a colleague said to me when I arrived in their Monrovia offices was, “You find us in the middle of Ebola.”  Already the Red Cross was mobilising in defence against the feared disease, applying every last ounce of force at its disposal to the colossal public health task, whilst frantically seeking the additional financial support it needs for this work.  Since I returned the outbreak has severely worsened, and the need that was already great is now spiraling.

People have heard of Liberia now.  Not because of the crushing beauty of the Atlantic crashing on 360 miles of pristine beaches and mangroves, not because of the global importance of the lush forests to biodiversity, not because of the vibrancy of Liberian-made fabrics that is known all over Africa.  Now friends and colleagues still ask me, “Is it safe?”  But they are not asking about human violence any more.  Ebola has made Liberia famous again.


To find out more about the work of the Red Cross in Liberia, click on the image of the motorbike to the right of this page.
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