Liberian Slum Takes Ebola Treatment Into Its Own Hands
WSJ
By Heidi Vogt
Updated Oct. 23, 2014 7:08 p.m. ET
15 COMMENTS
MONROVIA, Liberia—Two months after Liberia’s largest slum fought a government-imposed Ebola quarantine, residents are in a desperate push to conquer the deadly virus—with or without the government’s help.
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West Point isn’t the only place where attitudes are shifting, but it is particularly remarkable because the slum—where more than 50,000 people live in closely packed tin-roofed shacks—is one of the poorest districts of the capital city and because the government almost gave it up for lost.
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Tolbert Nyenswah, the head of the Liberian government’s Ebola response, applauded West Point as one of a few Monrovia neighborhoods where residents have taken charge of the effort.
“They have their own active case finding, and they are quarantining households and checking for strangers. If people are sick, they report that to the call center,” Mr. Nyenswah said.
But many in West Point say they are taking responsibility because the government deserted them. Even now, they would be much worse off had they depended on the government.
“During the quarantine, medical teams were not coming here. There were no ambulances, things were just terrible here,” Mr. Mambu said. It is better now, but the government is still too slow to respond: Ambulances sometimes take a day to arrive, he said...
