Public Employee Press


First of two parts
Members volunteer for international Ebola mission

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

Four dedicated scientists from the New York City Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene answered the unprecedented call for volunteers to track the widespread Ebola outbreak in three West African nations — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

“Ebola is only a plane ride away, which speaks to the urgency of this crisis,” said Dr. Aurora Amoah, a DOHMH Research Scientist III. Last spring she and fellow Local 375 member Dr. Jo Anne Bennett, a Research Scientist IV, and Local 768 Public Health Advisor Gardy Deshommes offered advanced technical assistance to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emergency Operations Center.

The three French-speaking DC 37 volunteers and a DOHMH manager traveled 4,500 miles from New York City to Conakry, Guinea, on a three-month health mission to track the rapid spread of Ebola hemorrhagic fever during the most severe outbreak to date.

They worked with a coalition of international health organizations including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations, and the Red Cross.

In a race against time, the epidemiologists’ mission was to trace the source, initial spread and transmission of the deadly Ebola virus. The DOHMH scientists were not engaged in direct care of persons diagnosed with Ebola or being monitored for potential Ebola exposure.

At Death’s Door

Ebola has no known cure and kills as many as 90 percent of people infected with the virus. The best way to prevent transmission, health experts agree, is frequent and thorough hand washing and decontamination with industrial strength bleach. After training at the CDC in Atlanta, Ga., they flew to West Africa for deployment to Guinea. From the capital, Conakry, they traveled by helicopter, by boat and by truck along dusty roads to reach the inland communes to gather statistics for the CDC.

The Ebola outbreak quickly spread in Guinea and Sierra Leone: The CDC reported 17,548 Ebola cases there with more than 12,000 cases confirmed by lab tests; 6,400 people died. Additionally, Liberia had 10,500 cases with 4,800 deaths, the CDC reported.

Guinea is a French-speaking nation bordered by six countries. There are as many as 70 border crossings, and the people for the most part are nomadic, Dr. Amoah said, which presents huge challenges to containing and preventing Ebola transmission. Guinea has a high illiteracy rate.

The nation is 85 percent Muslim with burial customs that presented challenges even when Ebola was not the cause of death. “Whole families were wiped out because of burial rites that include touching the dead,” to wash the body in preparation for burial, Dr. Amoah said in a presentation at DOHMH Gotham last July.

Ebola is not airborne and can only be contracted from contact with symptomatic persons, their body fluids (blood, saliva, semen, vomit and diarrhea), or a corpse. Persons will show high fever, aches, and bleeding when Ebola is infectious.

“Just one case led to the contamination of thousands of people in Conakry,” said Dr. Amoah. People died quickly. “We worked backwards to connect the chain of events that led to exposure, contamination and transmission of Ebola.”

“The people rely on health healers for treatment and their advice often goes contrary to modern medicine,” Dr. Amoah explained. “Some people believed if they went for treatment, they would not come back.”

“We would receive a call about a dead body. Families are large and relatives often have the same name. Guinea was not like Sierra Leone, where health experts had computers to track patients,” she said. “In Guinea we used pen and paper.”

The lack of infrastructure — no paved roads or electricity — and poor sanitation were some of the conditions CDC volunteers had to adapt to and overcome.

More Volunteers Needed

Daily temperatures were 38 degrees Celsius, about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with high humidity. The dedicated CDC volunteers worked 12-hour days in hot, close quarters with no air conditioning.

“After work, we’d file our reports sometimes until 3 or 4 a.m.,” Dr. Amoah said. “It was an inspiring collaboration. We built relationships with workers in international health agencies. I had to brush up on my French, which I had not spoken in 10 years. Overall I had a very positive experience volunteering as part of the CDC’s emergency response team.”

“The unique skills of these admirably committed DC 37 members put them at the forefront of the Ebola crises here and abroad to work under the direction of the CDC and other prominent international health organizations to address a dire public health threat,” said DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido.

“Their dedication to the mission of public health care, awareness and disease prevention makes us proud they belong to DC 37,” he said.

The CDC has again asked DOHMH for volunteer health experts fluent in French to participate in another Ebola response effort in West Africa. Likely, other DC 37 members will help the international health crisis along with Dr. Amoah, who will return to Guinea in November.