Article

2014-07-12 Africa Subsaharan

Ebola deaths surge in Sierra Leone and Liberia

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Posted by DarthVader 2014-07-12 02:47|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 More of a governmental and societal based problem in terms of the spread of the outbreak.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-07-12 06:40|| 2014-07-12 06:40|| Front Page Top

#2 ..it'll take some judges to have family members here getting TB and other contiguous disease to alter their social behavior in supporting unrestricted border violations rather than sound public health policies.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-07-12 09:48|| 2014-07-12 09:48|| Front Page Top

#3 Sort of like the SanFran lawyers keeping the early spreaders of Aids from being put in some island quarantine?

Posted by 3dc 2014-07-12 12:30|| 2014-07-12 12:30|| Front Page Top

#4 ..the karma of which killed far more among the community those lawyers represented than any hate crimes against that community for a hundred years.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-07-12 13:14|| 2014-07-12 13:14|| Front Page Top

#5 About communications and medicine in West Africa:

Liberia has about the same land area as Tennessee. In that land area there are seventeen different languages and 31 Ethnic groups. Liberia doesn't have the infrastructure or budget to produce health materials in all 17 languages; and outsiders don't always get the local variants of the languages right. Even if the health materials are correct and in the right language, not that many people can read them.

Village A is three miles downriver from Village B. The two villages can speak enough of each others' languages to trade. Getting to either village by road is nearly impossible in the rainy season, because both villages are several hours' hike off the main road, via jungle trails. Travel between villages by dugout canoe or raft isn't too hard, if you know which creeks are the right ones. In a rainforest, landmarks and waterways change quickly, so you have to know how to get around.

Village A has a radio that sort of works when the generator isn't broken down. Village B doesn't have radio access. It is, however, two hours closer to the main road, so news sometimes comes through by word of mouth when someone comes there.
Maybe last week's or last month's newspaper makes it into the village once in a while; and maybe one or two people can read it.

Several families in Village B have relatives in Village C, which is about ten miles upriver. Somebody paddles downstream bringing word that a relative has died. The families go upriver for the funeral. Part of the funeral involves washing the dead body. Nobody has any bleach; probably haven't even heard of it. And nobody knows much about this weird fever that Auntie had; they just know that she bled a lot and suffered.

Now some people in Western clothing paddle upriver to villages A and B. They tell people that if somebody starts bleeding and showing other symptoms of this disease, to notify somebody in the board of health, and to isolate the person and not touch them. This doesn't make any sense to the locals. Not touch someone who is sick? Besides, Uncle Momo says that he recognizes one guy, and that guy's brother in law was arrested for using body parts in magic two years ago. How do we know that these people are telling the truth? Maybe they just want body parts to make medicine.

So what do you do? You're so far out in the sticks that you can't transport somebody to a hospital. You don't have enough consistent access to communications to know anything about the organizations that these people in Kwee clothes claim to represent. Frankly, these people are telling you to do something that is so foreign to your culture that you don't believe them.

Your suspicions are aroused further when somebody from Village C comes to tell you that three more relatives got sick, and these people in suits that covered their whole bodies took their relatives away in a truck, and then said the relatives died and nobody can come bury them. This is obviously some plot to use relatives' suffering for making magic. So you don't report these illnesses, and you hide the sick when word gets out.

And the disease kills and kills.

And it's around the corner from some people I care about; people who are working really hard to ease suffering and prevent disease against all odds.

Posted by mom 2014-07-12 20:00|| 2014-07-12 20:00|| Front Page Top

#6 Very useful information, mom. Thank you. It's really hard to imagine life without modern conveniences like cell phones, newspapers, and nearly universal literacy.

Posted by trailing wife 2014-07-12 23:56|| 2014-07-12 23:56|| Front Page Top

23:56 trailing wife
21:50 Pappy
21:45 Pappy
20:39 RJ45ACP
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20:08 Rob Crawford
20:00 mom
19:58 Besoeker
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19:53 Rambler in Virginia
19:44 Procopius2k
19:42 DarthVader
19:38 trailing wife
19:29 Frank G
19:23 Redneck Jim
19:21 SteveS
19:18 Old Patriot
19:16 Charles
19:09 TopRev
19:02 Barbara
18:51 TopRev
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17:48 49 Pan