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Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsod...ingers-crossed
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How Liberia Is Starting To Beat Ebola, With Fingers Crossed
October 31, 2014 4:54 PM ET
...But there's another positive sign that doesn't get much attention, he says: Liberians are taking the matter into their own hands.
"I think a lot communities are now starting to get it and figure out how they can limit spread, prevent infection and prevent transmission," he says, "because this is not ... rocket science."
That same day, at that same bar, I heard about a woman in Monrovia helping with a grass-roots campaign in West Point, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.
The project sounded awesome. So I emailed Katie Meyler the day after I returned to the States. She called me on her cellphone from a market near West Point.
"Nobody would want to eradicate Ebola from their own neighborhood more than those who live in the neighborhood," Meyler says. "The mothers, fathers and neighbors and sisters, who want to protect their own children and protect their own families."
Meyler is the founder of More Than Me, a small nonprofit that runs a free school for girls in West Point. The school had to close when Ebola came. So Meyler knew she needed to turn her attention to getting the virus out of West Point.
A few months ago, she says, leaders in West Point banded together and built their own Ebola task force.
"They started going door to door to door, first with information about what Ebola is and how to keep yourself safe," Meyler says.
Then the team started training people to be nurses, so the team could actively look for Ebola cases in West Point. When the nurses find someone sick with what looks like Ebola, the team calls an ambulance and gets the person out of the community. All this hasn't cost much money, Meyler says.
"These guys just need boots because they're like going door to door in flip-flops looking for sick people," she says. "They need transportation to get the sick out as soon as possible. It doesn't have to be a billion-dollar ambulance."
The shoestring operation is working well. Cases in West Point have dropped. And the government wants to expand the project to five other neighborhoods in Monrovia.
"The way to reduce the cases," Meyler says, "is to listen to people who live in the community."
(Click above to access audio))
How Liberia Is Starting To Beat Ebola, With Fingers Crossed
October 31, 2014 4:54 PM ET
...But there's another positive sign that doesn't get much attention, he says: Liberians are taking the matter into their own hands.
"I think a lot communities are now starting to get it and figure out how they can limit spread, prevent infection and prevent transmission," he says, "because this is not ... rocket science."
That same day, at that same bar, I heard about a woman in Monrovia helping with a grass-roots campaign in West Point, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.
The project sounded awesome. So I emailed Katie Meyler the day after I returned to the States. She called me on her cellphone from a market near West Point.
"Nobody would want to eradicate Ebola from their own neighborhood more than those who live in the neighborhood," Meyler says. "The mothers, fathers and neighbors and sisters, who want to protect their own children and protect their own families."
Meyler is the founder of More Than Me, a small nonprofit that runs a free school for girls in West Point. The school had to close when Ebola came. So Meyler knew she needed to turn her attention to getting the virus out of West Point.
A few months ago, she says, leaders in West Point banded together and built their own Ebola task force.
"They started going door to door to door, first with information about what Ebola is and how to keep yourself safe," Meyler says.
Then the team started training people to be nurses, so the team could actively look for Ebola cases in West Point. When the nurses find someone sick with what looks like Ebola, the team calls an ambulance and gets the person out of the community. All this hasn't cost much money, Meyler says.
"These guys just need boots because they're like going door to door in flip-flops looking for sick people," she says. "They need transportation to get the sick out as soon as possible. It doesn't have to be a billion-dollar ambulance."
The shoestring operation is working well. Cases in West Point have dropped. And the government wants to expand the project to five other neighborhoods in Monrovia.
"The way to reduce the cases," Meyler says, "is to listen to people who live in the community."
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