The Search for Ebola

This chapter covers the "search for Ebola". They discovered it by a man called G.M. got it at Kitwit, which is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He got infected (they think in the forest because he was a charcoalmaker) and over they next few days he began to feel unwell. He ran a high fever and his eyes turned bright red. When his family first took him to the hospital they people called it la diarrhee rouge, the red diarrhea.

After G.M. died of this, all three members of his family died. The virus spreads throughout the city and soon it got into the Kikwit Maternity Hospital. Ebola would infect both the mother and baby, each of them dying. What literally made me gasp aloud was when I read that the nurses and doctors at the hospital didn't wear gloves because they ran out!!!!! Of course these nurses and doctors died of Ebola as well. I just couldn't believe it though, isn't that they number one rule? Never touch someone else's blood without gloves on! I guess they didn't know that then.... I was also very impressed with all the doctors and nurses that volunteered to stay and help with all the patients. There was little or no pay, that is pretty courageous. When I was reading I asked myself if i would have stayed... and I don't think I would have!