The scale of the Ebola virus was underestimated by several factors
Last reviewed: 23.11.2021
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The breadth of the spread of Ebola fever, especially in Sierra Leone and Liberia, experts underestimated for a variety of reasons.
Most families at home hide close relatives who are infected with the virus. It is caused by the fact that there is no effective treatment from the virus, and many leave their loved ones at home to make it easier for them to die.
In addition, many people deny Ebola's disease from their relatives, and believe that the patient's stay in the prison will only worsen the patient's condition and accelerate death. Also, the majority are afraid of stigmatization and social rejection not only infected with the Ebola virus, but also all members of their families.
Outbreaks of the disease spread rather quickly than create many problems for international cooperation. The number of volunteers, personal protective equipment and other equipment is insufficient under the current conditions, clinics and diagnostic centers are overloaded, most of them are closed, as health workers are massively calculated, and patients simply do not seek help.
In some villages, corpses of those who died from the Ebola virus are buried without identifying the cause of death and without communication to health officials. Sometimes epidemiologists came to the villages to count the approximate number of dead from the virus on freshly dug graves.
Some areas of Liberia are marked by extremely high rates of infection. Only the newly opened medical facilities in a relatively short time are filled with infected Ebola fever, while most of them have the virus diagnosed for the first time. All this confirms the fact of the presence of patients who have not been identified by the epidemiological surveillance system and are unaccounted for.
In the capital of Liberia, Monrovia, a center was recently opened to treat patients with the Ebola virus, which had 20 places, but the center was immediately overloaded almost fourfold.
Also one of the problems is the "shadow zone", i.e. Settlements where there is every reason to suppose the spread of the Ebola virus, however, it is not possible to conduct a normal study in these areas due to the refusal of the community representatives to admit health workers to the village or the shortage of volunteers and transport.
In some areas, especially in Monrovia, almost all medical services are closed.
It is because of the lack of medical assistance in any form that a riot began in one of the isolators for those infected with the Ebola virus in the village of West Point. This village represents a slum area in which the virus is most common.
Also among the inhabitants there is an opinion that the converted one of the abandoned schools for the sick is actually a hospital for the provision of general medical services. People who brought sick with a fever of relatives of the isolator, according to the alleged data, were placed in wards with infected patients.
Representatives of the West Point community expressed dissatisfaction with the presence of patients from other communities, which resulted in subsequent sedition and looting. As a result of such action, many contaminated materials were in the hands of community representatives.
Epidemiologists from the World Health Organization in Liberia and Sierra Leone are collaborating with other agencies, in particular the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States of America, to provide a more plausible assessment that will establish the true extent of the spread of the virus.