What I learned in Sierra Leone & Liberia about Ebola survivors struggling to get back to normal life
Musu is a Liberian resident who was infected with the Ebola virus during the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Her husband, her five children and herself were also affected.
Six members of Musu’s family were killed a few weeks after that. Musu, her son and the youngest survived.
Their lives since then have changed. Her husband had been the sole provider for her family. Musu, a widowed single mother and father struggles to survive. She said, “There’s no one else here who can help me except God.” No boyfriend. No boyfriend. I’m the father, mother, uncle and brother.
We can’t find any food in the rental house.”
Musu was one of many Ebola survivors to recover from this world-wide epidemic. It began as a small outbreak of the disease in Meliandou, Guinea. Then it spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
In three years the disease affected 28,600 individuals. Around 11,000 died, while the remaining 17,000 lived.
The World Health Organization officially declared the end of Ebola in Liberia on 9 June 2016.
The media has been less active in reporting on the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic compared to its initial coverage. Few people are aware that Ebola victims have been struggling to live their lives after the outbreak.
These survivors include orphans and widows, as well as thousands of blind people or those with permanent visual problems.
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Social demographer, I study health and population trends.
In my recent book Life After Epidemics – Ebola Survivors & the Social Dimensions of Recovery, I document many of these stories. After interviewing 250 Ebola victims in Liberia, Sierra Leone and elsewhere, I tried to find out why so many of them live in poorer conditions now than they did before.
It is important to understand these problems in order to develop solutions for the current challenges faced by Ebola survivor. By learning from their experience, we can help prevent similar problems in future epidemic survivors.
Responses to epidemics: Medical or social?
Understanding the differences between two different types of response to epidemics is a good place to start when trying determine what went wrong.
First, there is the medical response which focuses on the clinical use of medicine in order to treat and save the lives of patients who are infected.
Second, there is a social response that addresses such issues as providing sustainable livelihoods for orphans and survivors, as well as integrating them into their community.
The policy makers gave a higher priority to short-term medical interventions in response to the Ebola outbreak than they did long-term responses.
My research aims to determine how Ebola survivors have responded to this focus.
I used interviews and information from other sources to determine how the health of survivors, their sources of income, and the lives of families have changed.
This research presents evidence of the negative impact that limited social investment has on survivors’ lives.
There are, for example, no programs that offer them comprehensive healthcare access, despite the fact that many are blind or have musculoskeletal problems, neurological disorders, and other side effects from the virus.
The book also describes what it is like for farmers who are ill and can’t till the land anymore, or hunters who cannot see. These survivors were once self-employed, but now have no income.
The stigma associated with Ebola is still prevalent in many local communities due to the lack of investment made in the social response. Social interactions between Ebola victims and those who still believe that they are infected are negatively affected by this fear. This fear caused many business owners to lose customers and even contributed to marriages ending.
Many survivors are no longer invited to social occasions such as weddings or child-naming ceremonies. Some of their children also have lost friends after their neighbours forbade their kids from playing with Ebola survivors’ children.
Humanitarian organizations played an important role in stopping the spread of disease during this epidemic.
Some of these policies, though, had unintended effects that were detrimental to patients who did survive. The practice of burning infected patient’s belongings to stop the spread of the disease has caused economic hardship for many survivors.
The fire caused financial loss to survivors, who lost their farming equipment, their saving under their beds, as well as their borrowed equipment.
During the Ebola epidemic, some of the messages used in the public health campaigns to stop the spread of virus had also unintended effects. The campaigns warned people to stay away from infected individuals as there is no cure for Ebola. Many people have avoided touching Ebola survivors since the outbreak ended. Many people in local communities have continued to avoid touching survivors since the end of the epidemic.
Why Ebola survivors feel abandoned
Many survivors felt abandoned after hearing their stories. Community leaders no longer visit.
Hospitals have stopped providing them with specialised treatment. The promises made by political leaders to provide support for their recovery have not been fulfilled. Fraud led to the loss of some resources donated by donors.
Ebola victims continue to feel the impact of their irreversible losses from a decade earlier. The Ebola survivors’ lives are still defined by their experiences, and their inability to pay attention to the social conditions of their time.
In the future, policy makers must pay equal attention to social and medical issues. It will take sustained investment to make sure that survivors can live better lives long after the epidemic is over.
