At the weekly Partners meeting in Monrovia this week, the CDC reported that Ebola cases had started increasing again in Liberia. They also started increasing again in Sierra Leone and Guinea for the first time in a month and a half. The reason is not yet known (or at least not reported to us) for the resurgence. It could be a little statistical 'noise' which is the scattering nature of data as it occurs in the world. It could be due to the Ebola deniers. However, there are no more deniers now than there were 3 weeks ago. This leaves us with the most likely answer, human behavior.
People here want to live what for them are normal lives. They really don't want to worry about Ebola. They have had enough of that. They want to be able to hug friends, take care of sick family and go to parties to dance. All of that was suspended when Ebola struck and it was a hard lesson. If there was Ebola in your neighborhood and you ignored the rules, you stood a fair chance of contracting Ebola and dieing. Losing friends and family changed a lot of behavior. But it didn't change the desire for a normal life.
As the epidemic waned, people started relaxing. They congregated with friends for New Years Parties and they could again be seen hugging and shaking hands. Schools were scheduled to be reopened. In that setting, Ebola can spread, if it is present and unfortunately it is present. Hopefully, spike in cases is a little bit of statistical noise or just a minor letdown in protective behavior that can be rapidly corrected. It is hard to say right now because the spike in cases is so new. I guess we will just wait another week or two to see what happens.
Rick
PS. The baby whose mother had died has herself died. No one knows why and we will never know why. That is how it is in the developing world. There aren't enough resources here to keep people alive, much less to find out why people die. We will just gather all the baby things that we had purchased for her and save them for the next opportunity.
No comments:
Post a Comment