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.

Sunday, 17 August 2014

No cure

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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