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The Ebola Virus
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and the Challenges to Health Research in Africa
| By Daniel Bausch |
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Sometimes,
it seems that much of Africa almost courts misery, reading like the
script of a bad action movie, everything happening at once-disease,
natural disasters, war, epidemics—a Hollywood producer would likely
throw it out as too unbelievable. As the Ebola epidemic started to wane,
I finally had a few minutes to get to know some of my co-workers—the
human beings behind the surgical masks. One day, in between screening
patients, a young nurse named Christine told me her story—the story
of Africa's other epidemic. Her father, mother and brothers, all dead
from AIDS; she and her sisters are left behind, trying to make the best
of things. She recounted the tale almost casually, not because it wasn't
tragic but because, tragically, it wasn't unusual. What's more, suffering
caused by malaria and tuberculosis is so common that people generally
fail to recount stories about it at all.
To survive to old age in much of sub-Saharan Africa, it seems you have to run the gauntlet. Only a strong disposition, and perhaps a good dose of luck, buys you longevity. Children survive the respiratory and diarrhoeal illnesses of childhood, only to face new threats of AIDS and Ebola, wars and automobile accidents. Too often, if one thing doesn't get you, another will. Lest we become overly pessimistic, it should be noted that there is cause for hope. Africa has many resources upon which to draw—incredible cultural diversity, a tradition of creativity and perseverance, wealth in the form of minerals and natural resources. Most notably, I have always been impressed with the civility, liveliness and depth of the social structure in many African countries, the respect for elders, the strength of the family unit, the sense of duty. Answers may take time, perhaps generations, but we have to start looking now. Even the continents that we presently consider more "developed" emerged out of complex periods with similarities to present-day Africa. African success stories exist. Public health initiatives have recently scaled back the AIDS epidemic in Uganda. Even Ebola can have its happy ending. Like Onenchan Jones. The day before I left Gulu, he came back to the hospital to visit me, along with his eleven children. Feeling good, with a huge smile on his face, he offered to give me a chicken. Say what you want about tragedies in Africa, but you've never seen someone so happy to be alive.
Onenchan
Jones looked at me through sunken, fearful eyes. "Doctor, I'm dying",
he said simply. It wasn't a declaration but a plea. Weak, whispered,
far-away, a voice already half dead. Given his condition and that he
had seen friends and family die of Ebola, I silently supposed he was
right. It was just a matter of time until his motionless body would
have to be counted as another corpse. Thus started my first day of work
on the Ebola ward at Gulu Regional Hospital in northern Uganda.
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