Ebola

I have a multitude of interests and what better subject to write on that includes history and medical.


Hemorrhagic Fever, better known as Ebola.

In America, we were afraid of the frequent travelers that came from Africa and the frequent travelers that went to Africa during the Ebola epidemic. Ebola meant a death sentence, yet we barely knew anything about it--heck, even President Obama went on national television to speak about it. Ebola spread like wildfire in Western Africa in places such as Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone during 2014. Ebola is usually only found in the Congo or Uganda. You can get it by touching an infected person's skin or by coming in contact with an infected person's urine, blood, mucus, and saliva. It is mistaken for the flu at first until your organs start shutting down. There was no vaccination.

In the beginning, natives of these countries did not believe CDC, other doctors, or the government. They refused to listen to the preventative steps until it was too late. No one could believe that it was Ebola because it was hitting urban areas harder than it had hit rural areas.

If interested in the medical aspect and visual representations of what Ebola looked like in West Africa, go to Netflix and watch the documentary Facing Darkness.