Australian Dan Baschiera is volunteering at an Ebola treatment hospital in Sierra Leone where he is doing what he can to stop the deadly disease.
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Here is his second letter:
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For some reason the rigor mortis starts to set in within minutes; the medics have to straighten the body immediately otherwise it is hell trying to body bag the contortion of pain.
The body is highly contagious - we try to minimise our contact with it as we sterilise a lost life into a white plastic bag. The smaller the body bag the harder it is to fight back the tears and sometimes I just cry in my goggles.
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Who knows how long Sierra Leone can withstand the assault of this epidemic?
On the other hand, Ebola is doing unpredictable things: it plateaus in some places, and continues upwards in others; some people it kills, others recover - some of them from the brink.
A lot of it seems to be in sync with the viral load people are exposed to. I think the combination of good hydration, good food (mixed with "Plumpy nut" [a peanut-based paste for treatment of severe acute malnutrition]) and a sterile environment where we minimise patient risk of increasing viral load by rolling into their faeces and vomit, has given us a better cure/discharge to body bag rate.
But anything is possible with this virus.
There is an interesting case of a discharged patient being reinfected when returned to his home where exposure to further viral load probably collapsed an already weakened immune system.
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I am now very tired physically and emotionally, it is time to leave before I make a mistake. I know I face stigmatisation on my return, but my garden should benefit from my 21 days in quarantine.
