
Only $4.99 per month

They survived Ebola only to become social outcasts

Gregg Zoroya

MONROVIA, Liberia — Landlords won't rent to them. Employers won't hire them. Taxi drivers won't give them a lift. Barber shops refuse to cut their hair without gloves.

They are Ebola survivors. In one place where they are desperately needed as workers, Ebola treatment clinics, many survivors have nightmarish memories of barely staying alive.

Ebola Survivor Siah Tamba, now an Expert Patient Trainer at the Police Academy Training Facility in Monrovia.

Thousands of West Africans have beaten the odds and survived Ebola. More than 6,500 people have died in the outbreak, and only 30% who have contracted Ebola have survived the aggressive disease that robs the body of fluids and causes major organs to fail.

Most who emerge from the clinics fully recovered discover a cruel society eager to distance itself from them and the plague.

A recent study by the World Health Organization where 62 survivors from in an around this city were interviewed about their post-recovery experiences, 80% said they now struggle with stigma and discrimination.

In Liberia, where infections once soared and now are on the decline, survivors complain that they are shunned by many who still see then as Ebola carriers.

"I feel that I have been ostracized," said Vivian Rogers, 40, who lost seven relatives to the epidemic before falling ill and fighting off the disease. She is a government filing clerk who has been told by her boss to stay home.

"I am so sad because I am used to working," Rogers said. "They are paying me, but I am not working and not being useful ... I don't know whether they are afraid of me. But I know I am no threat."

At a police academy in this capital city, where the U.S. Army has set up a training school for future Ebola clinic staffers, 24-year-old survivor Siah Tamba plays the role of patient for students learning skills in diagnosis and treatment..

A thin line of yellow ointment under her eyes simulates an infectious discharge and red make-up on her eyelids suggests signs of hemorrhaging. She places a pillow under her wrap-around skirt and walks slowly, as if pain, holding her stomach.

"I act like a pregnant woman going through vaginal bleeding and I have hiccups," Tamba said, showing how she helps students understand, "what they are going to meet in the ETU (Ebola treatment unit) and how to handle it the right way."

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Pat Hickey, a pediatric infectious disease physician who is leading education efforts, said that at most of the U.S. training sites, Ebola survivors recruited by the Liberian Ministry of Health play crucial roles discussing their experiences and then acting the part of sick patients during classroom instruction.

"They've lived it and they understand better than anyone," Hickey said.

Much remains to be done to integrate survivors back into the community and fight the stigma, said Korlia Bonarwolo, a physician's assistant and a survivor who chairs an association for those who have recovered from Ebola.

He said many Ebola survivors return from clinics to find their belongings have been burned to kill the virus and they face eviction or are denied jobs.

Juliet Boima, 19, a survivor who works at the ebola clinic since she is immune now. Despite being unable to contract ebola, she still must wear protective gear to eliminate the chance that she could carry the virus to someone else.

"These are the challenges that survivors are going through on a daily basis," said Bonarwolo, 25. "We just have to go on educating our people. They (survivors) should get the love and care that any other person has, instead of treating them separately."

An editorial last week in the International Journal of Epidemiology called for a concerted effort to mobilize survivors in the fight against Ebola, saying it could hasten the end of the epidemic.

"In a sense, survivors are the only people in the world who are 'vaccinated' against further Ebola infection with the strain in circulation," the writers argued. Survivors could be trained as ether medical or emotional-support care-givers, and be valuable for a reconstituted health system even after Ebola is defeated.

Dr. J. Soka Moses, a lead physician at an Ebola clinic in Monrovia operated by the Ministry of Defense, said that if he had his way, his entire treatment team would be made up of Ebola survivors.

"Their bodies are better prepared to work in this environment," Moses said, "more prepared than mine."

A handful currently work at the clinic, but none in a medical role. One is Juliet Boima, 19, who lived in a small Muslim community northwest of Monrovia that was nearly wiped out by the disease.

Today she earns about $300 a month for the only job she has been able to find: laundry service.

Boima said memories of her struggle to survive in an Ebola clinic stay with her: the intense bouts of vomiting, losing control of body functions and the pain.

Returning to work in the clinic is not easy. "People are dying. I do not like to see people dying," she said, a weary expression on a young face. "I do not have somewhere else to work. So I will be here."

Samwar Fallah contributed to this story.