Photo Gallery 'Everyone Was Afraid'
Pediatrician Werner Strahl of the Cologne-based medical aid organization Cap Anamur, recently spent 10 days in August at the Ola During Children's Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone. During his visit, the hospital had its first case of Ebola.
Nurses provide care for children in the hospital. After learning of the Ebola outbreak, almost all the staff at Ola During Children's Hospital abandoned the facility. "Everyone was afraid because word had gotten around that in Sierra Leone alone, 30 nurses and four doctors had already died of Ebola," Strahl says.
Melvin-Vincent (pictured here) first tested positive for malaria. But his father had lied to the hospital by denying that the four-year-old had been exposed to Ebola. Staff first learned from his stepmother that Melvin-Vincent's grandmother had recently been killed by the virus. The stunning news resulted in the closure of the hospital, which Cap Anamur had spent five years establishing.
The outbreak marked a significant setback for the German-run hospital. "We had truly succeeded in building up a children's hospital that functioned well," Strahl says. "The hospital still isn't totally up to Western standards of hygiene, but it's pretty good by African standards". Strahl is now back in Germany and has made it through the three-week incubation period for Ebola without showing any signs of the disease, but he says he has deep concern for his Cap Anamur colleagues still providing care in Freetown.
