Organizations seek to help patients reintegrate into society after recovering

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN   by Erika Check Hayden and Nature magazine                                               Dec. 18, 2014

Katima Kamara survived Ebola. Now she cares for children as a nurse at an Ebola treatment center in Kenema, Sierra Leone. But Kamara’s neighbours are wary of her, despite her bill of good health. Some call her home the ‘Ebola compound’ and avoid taking water from her well.

Kamara’s story is not unusual. Across Sierra Leone, Ebola survivors are working as nurses, caregivers, counsellors, organizers and outreach workers, seeking to halt the spread of the disease that threatened their lives. But they also fight discrimination and stigma, lingering health problems and poverty—a legacy of the ongoing Ebola epidemic that is only now beginning to be addressed, seven months after the virus emerged in the country....

Now Sierra Leonean officials are organizing three conferences, with support from UNICEF, to help survivors working to reintegrate into their communities. The first begins on December 18.

Fatima Kamara (centre) survived Ebola and is now back at home with her family in Kenema, Sierra Leone.
Credit: Erika Check Hayden

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ebola-survivors-fight-prejudice1/