Still Fighting Ebola: A View from Liberia’s Front Line

WIRED  by Maryn McKenna                                                                                           Feb. 16, 2015
Interview with F. Zeela Zaizay, a registered nurse and the Liberian team leader for MAP International, a Christian medical-assistance nonprofit. MAP, which is based in Atlanta and has sent $1.7 million’ worth of supplies such as “no touch” infrared thermometers and protective equipment for health workers, and helped organize Ebola-education efforts in townships and on local radio.

“We are having an average now of less than one case per day,” he told me in a Skype call from Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. “That shows we have made tremendous gains in the fight against Ebola. But the practices that led to the gains we are having are being abandoned just as the cases are declining too, so it brings about fear. If we are not careful we could have more cases again.”

Asked  what he thought Liberia needed most to combat the disease... he put high on the list  “high quality medications” for diseases other than Ebola. “A third of our health care offices are now just conducting triage for Ebola,” he said. Patients with other diseases, such as leprosy and the bacterial disease Buruli ulcer, are afraid to come to those clinics. “If we could take them medications,” he observed, “they would not have to risk contact with sick people and the burden of disease would be less.”

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http://www.wired.com/2015/02/ebola-liberia/

                              F. Zeela Zaizay, courtesy MAP International