Life on the Ebola frontline: 'The virus has destroyed so many beautiful dreams'
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Version 0 of 1. 3 December 2015 “Today is another day and every day is another sad story, awakening to news of more infection of our loved ones,” says Lucia, who was quarantined a few months back. It has been really difficult to contain this virus, many questions keep crossing our minds. Why do we still have this virus? And not only that. Why does the infection rate keep increasing? Is it we, the people, or the government? Why have people not stopped washing dead bodies and burying them at night? Why are people still keeping sick relatives at home? How are infected people getting through so many checkpoints and spreading the virus to other parts of the country? A woman, after her sister died of the Ebola virus, went to Freetown and brought her sister’s children to come and stay with her in the provinces; no other family members were willing to take the children. After staying for about 10 days, the children started developing Ebola symptoms. They were taken to the holding centre and before their results came back, which was positive, two of the children had already died. The woman, who is also in the holding centre, has become a human without hope. She is now traumatised, thinking the whole community has turned its back on her, left her to die at the hands of Ebola. My very best friend from childhood died this morning. His guardian, who was a pharmacist, got the virus from a customer who came to buy medicine for her sick child, not knowing she was already infected. Even though she washed her hands with chlorinated water before entering, he still got the virus from her and took it home. He infected everyone in his family before he finally died; now my friend is dead and the other family members are all sick. The virus has killed many but many also have died because of trauma, worries, fear of what is going to happen, or what has happened to their loved ones. This is how this virus has destroyed so many beautiful dreams. As I always say, unless we all stand to fight this common enemy with pure intent the stories of new infection will continue to rise. I give praise to God almighty for today, and I pray to see the end of another day. |