I clearly remember the first time I heard of Ebola. It was 2012 and I was in Juba, South Sudan
with my husband. He is a medical doctor,
and was working in Juba Teaching Hospital, where there is an office that we
were both using. I was doing research on
South Sudanese mothers’ experiences of medical care. That summer there were a couple of Ebola
cases in Uganda, and this made the news (Al Jazeera has been my first choice of
news providers since that time because I was so impressed with the breadth of coverage). At the same time, a rumour was going round
the hospital where we were working that there was an Ebola case there in Juba
Teaching Hospital. As with most rumours,
it turned out to be a false alarm.
However (after my hubby explained what Ebola was), I remember the
disconcerting feeling of powerlessness from potentially being in the presence
of an incurable, deadly disease.
Until I heard about Ebola I never realised how invincible I
thought I was. Don’t get me wrong – I know
I could get hit by the proverbial lorry or some similar terminal mishap. I acknowledge accident and injury as a real
and serious danger. But in relation to
disease? I am relatively young, fairly fit
and healthy, and having lived the majority of my life in the Western world I
expect to be immunised, to take prophylactic treatment or, should I contract a
disease, to be provided with the latest treatments, without excessive cost (if
any), and for these to be effective. The
thought of there being a disease with no cure and that we understand so little
about out there seemed dark, mysterious, and incredibly unnerving. As I experienced this reaction I was
simultaneously painfully aware of the life of privilege my reaction betrayed.
When I was in Monrovia a few weeks back, I heard exasperated
colleagues report that some unscrupulous people had been selling an Ebola ‘vaccine’
in the market, conning anxious laypeople with a false hope. Perhaps even if you live in a context where
the treatments you need for the diseases in my expansive ‘preventable/treatable’
category may be unavailable or unaffordable to you, there is something
unnerving at the thought of a disease that no
one could treat or cure.
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