1. Laura Pasnicki Microbiology
west Africa: ebola
Laura Pasnicki
Microbiology

2. West Africa
Culture
Beliefs
Pathogen: Ebola
Healthcare

3. First person perspective:
West Africa:Ebola
Ebola is highly contagious and if contracted can be detrimentally deadly. Ebola is not airborne but transmitted through blood and bodily fluids of person who is sick with Ebola and has active symptoms. Ebola can also be transmitted though contact with other objects contaminated with the disease i.e. clothes, bedding, needles/sharps, and medical equipment.
Negative practices/traditional beliefs: mistrust, apprehension and resistance to embrace public health preventative measures. The culture of West Africa believe to use orthodox medicine and do not believe in taking proper measures to fighting this deadly pathogen.
First person perspective:
“At 6 a.m., our medical team arrives at the Ebola case-management center in the Kailahun district of Sierra Leone to take blood samples. At our 80-bed center here near the borders of Liberia and Guinea, 8 new patients were admitted yesterday, 9 need to have a repeat test 72 hours after their symptoms began, and some we hope to discharge today: at least 18 blood samples to obtain. The center currently houses 64 patients in all, 4 of them children less than 5 years of age. We have already seen 2 patients die today.”(Anja Wolz RN). It is shown that by this statement alone the terror and freight healthcare workers had to suffer under because of this extreme pathogen.
. Many who are from the old era have trust issues with individuals outside their tight knit community and do not believe the Government or health care workers have their best interest at heart because they think they want to change their tradition and their way of life when that isn’t the case.
Poor health seeking measures including hiding patients infected and or sick; home based medical care; self-custom care of corpses. These are contributors to exposing the Ebola virus within their community. The lack of cooperation and their vision against seeking proper healthcare is a huge
The extensive movement of persons crossing the border, traveling into other countries is another major reason for the spread of Ebola. In West Africa they believe in home remedies and not to be cared by for health care workers. The resources they have access to be slim to none; financial, human capital, and logistic requirements are hard to come by. They also transmit the disease by visiting sick family and taking proper precautions; attending burial ceremonies is another major reason for the spread of Ebola.
The sanitation process of foods; hunting game and how food is prepared is said to not be sanitary. In Africa they hunt for game and they sterilization process is not clean versus the sterilization process in other countries. Ebola is said to be contracted through bush meat (wild animal hunted as game); mainly fruit bat and primate. In West Africa they hunt fruit bat and make a soup from the primate, but they sterile process of cleaning the wild animals does not de-contaminate it from certain diseases. Ebola is noted to come from the droppings of the bat, and is cooked into the soup that individuals consume.

4. References
Wolz, A. (2014). Face to Face With Ebola. Perspective, 10. Retrieved February 23, 2015, from
Ebola Virus Disease. (2015, February 10). Retrieved February 23, 2015, from
Thompson, D. (2014, July 2). Ebola's Deadly Spread in Africa Driven by Public Health Failures, Cultural Beliefs. Retrieved February 23, 2015, from fever-world-health-guinea-sierra-leone-liberia/