Not Over

The past week has not brought good news on the Ebola front in West Africa.  An American health care worker in Sierra Leone working with Partners in Health was infected with Ebola and is gravely ill.  Several Sierra Leonean colleagues as well as a worker from the UK are also fighting to survive Ebola, and many of the American worker’s colleagues are being monitored due to their potential exposure.  While all of the Ebola response organizations have their differences, we deeply feel the weight of these new infections in our fellow responders–our communities are intertwined and I/we have many connections to these people and desperately hope for their survival.  Please pray for the sick ones and their families.

In Guinea, cases have been steadily increasing in 2015 and it is the most difficult country in the region to work in–there is much fear and skepticism and even violence in communities against Ebola responders.

And lastly, our hope that Liberia was on the way to being declared Ebola-free has been dashed again–Thursday was exactly two weeks since the last positive Ebola patient in Liberia was discharged cured and we were all counting–with some hope and a lot of hesitancy–towards 21 days (the halfway mark to the official 42 needed).  But instead, on Thursday a new Ebola patient was identified and admitted to an ETU in Monrovia.  Many partners are coordinating efforts to try identify contacts before Ebola spreads again, but it is not an easy job.

We must press on.