this video was made possible by a way
get your away suitcase for 20 off at the
link in the description
in the final days of December 2013 in
the small village of meliendo Guinea a
young 18 month old boy named Emil died
only four days before this child had
been completely healthy acting normally
playing regularly in the bat infested
backyard of his rural home
but then he developed flu-like symptoms
which spiraled and spiraled until he
passed unfortunately such An Occurrence
is not uncommon for the young children
of Guinea a country not known for the
quality of its health care but then just
a few days later his sister died too
his mother then his grandmother then a
family friend Each of which had attended
to the boy in his final days this was
not normal
but nobody was exactly sure what had
happened to these people their symptoms
resembled that of a number of illnesses
common to the area such as malaria and
typhoid fever but in the end the doctor
settled on cholera given this
infection's profile and propensity in
Guinea but then the cholera spread now
cholera is contagious it's the idea of
it spreading is not surprising but a far
higher proportion of patience than
predicted died medical staff were
starting to get concerned that this
might not be just another of the area's
all too common cholera outbreaks and so
the password on to midsole Frontier
anglicized as Doctors Without Borders
who were by chance already on the ground
in Guinea treating a malaria outbreak
the organization liaised with the
Infectious Disease experts at their head
office in Geneva who presented an
unsettling hypothesis they weren't sure
but they agreed that it might not be
cholera and then it might be Ebola the
outbreak quite closely followed the
profile of this virus but Ebola had
never really been an issue in West
Africa for the most part it had only
ever been seen in central Africa what is
now North and South Sudan Uganda the DRC
the Congo and Gabon these current cases
were well over a thousand miles from the
closest previous outbreak so the idea of
the virus simply randomly popping up in
the middle of the Ghanaian forest was
unlikely but nonetheless terrifying so
they needed to be sure therefore medson
Frontier gathered samples packed them in
three layers of protective packaging
loaded them on a plane chartered from
gwakadu flew them to the Capitol then
transferred them onto the overnight Air
France flight to Paris where they were
analyzed in a specialized lab
unfortunately the worst of their worst
fears were confirmed Not only was this
Ebola but it was the Zaire strain the
most deadly of Ebola species that
confirmation was publicly announced by
the World Health Organization on March
23 2014 nearly three months after the
Young
died while the who was concerned the
rest of the world was not the rest of
the world didn't even realize what was
going on or its devastating potential
the New York Times for example took four
whole days after the announcement to
publish their first article about the
virus on 146 word write-up mostly
focusing on the government's ban on bat
soup in order to curb the spread this
would be the first of thousands of
Articles they would write over the next
few years about this virus this was the
start of the worst Ebola epidemic in
history now that the virus was
identified the goal shifted to stopping
it the organization most in charge of
coordinating the international response
to epidemics is the World Health
Organization the members of this United
Nations agency include a majority of the
world countries and so when there's a
public health emergency it falls on them
to respond once word reached the who
their first step was to activate their
Global outbreak alert and response
Network this includes essentially Fast
Response medical teams for epidemics the
first of which in this case arrived on
March 28th just five days after the
initial alert their first goal was to
find the links between the patients to
draw a map of who infected who in order
to try and just quarantine everyone
exposed and stop the virus before it
could even gain its legs this was not
particularly difficult in this case as
the cases in meliendo attracted
attention early on but the news was also
not particularly good you see when the
first victim the young Emil was sick his
mom and sister took him to stay across
the village at his grandmother's house
when that grandmother later became sick
she went to visit a friend a nurse in
the nearby larger town of guekadu in
order to get some help weeks later that
nurse too developed symptoms and sought
help from a friend of his a doctor in
the even larger town of mesenta when
that doctor too fell ill he said it off
to seek help in the country's capital
but died along the way and so his body
was then sent to the even larger city of
kisudugu where the funeral was held now
while Ebola does not spread through the
air it does through contact with the
bodily fluids of an infected patient
whether dead or alive so hospitals and
burial facilities are where most
Transmissions occur especially if proper
quarantine procedures are not followed
considering that at this point nobody
knew it was Ebola nobody was following
these procedures in meliendo grecadu
masenta or kisi dugu so with each
infected patient that went to these
cities more and more people were
infected who themselves infected more
and so on and so forth by the time
medical institutions knew this was Ebola
three months after the first case it was
too late to trace all the Transmissions
the spread was beyond control therefore
Focus shifted to isolating and treating
the infected The Who msf and other
International organizations shipped in
staff by the plane mode not much longer
than a week after detection there were
more than a hundred foreign medical
staff in the country the other important
goal was to ship in as much protective
gear as possible doctors nurses and
other medical staff are at the most risk
for transmission from Ebola patients and
therefore in order to not become
patients themselves they needed to wear
as they became known Ebola suits of
which thousands were shipped in within
weeks the country's Ministry of Health
quickly set up a system where if anyone
suspected anyone of having Ebola they
could call a hotline 115 for a doctor to
come out on a motorcycle and investigate
if this doctor believed the patient
could indeed have the virus they would
call out a team from msf which in full
biohazard suits would transport the
patient to an isolation Ward and a
hospital in Conakry the capital this
system was quickly overwhelmed with up
to 300 calls a day but it seemed to
actually work by the beginning of May
less than two months after the initial
alert this Hospital in kanakri where the
patients were isolated reached its first
week without a new Ebola patient then it
reached its second and its third as
three weeks is the incubation period for
Ebola the period it takes for symptoms
to arise in virus carriers it meant that
as long as nobody in the hospital was
infected the spread would be over with
that preparations began for the retreat
of the ngos in Guinea it was crisis
averted job well done mission
accomplished until May 27th that's when
a new patient came in and then more came
dozens more from all around the country
it turned out that the Ebola had not in
fact been stopped but rather many of the
patients in the rural isolated regions
of the country had simply become
distrustful of medical professionals
many had seen foreign medical staff in
their towns before they had seen Ebola
victims and therefore many came to the
conclusion that it was these staff who
were spreading the virus rather than
preventing its spread therefore when
people in these Villages became sick
they simply didn't report it to the
country's medical system which made the
problem worse as unprotected untrained
townspeople cared for the infected well
the May of 2014 saw just 74 official
cases fewer than each of the previous
two months June saw 290. by June with
the Resurgence in cases the world was
now paying attention to guinea close by
the borders between Guinea Liberia and
Sierra Leone were quickly closed down
but it was too little too late the virus
had spread that June also marked the
first month that both Liberia and Sierra
Leone recorded significant numbers of
cases further afield the rest of the
world wanted to be sure that the virus
would be contained to just these three
countries given that infected
individuals can carry the virus with no
symptoms for up to 21 days travel was a
major concern most Airlines suspended
their flights Emirates stopped flying to
guinea Delta stopped flying to Liberia
and the situation was most pronounced in
Sierra Leone where all Airlines except
for Brussels Airlines stopped flying to
the country's airports this lack of
flights to the region made things
difficult in terms of getting supplies
and workers into the region in fact
Brussels Airlines is largely credited
with playing a crucial role in the fight
against the epidemic for having not
canceled their flights the airline
received praise from everyone up to the
Obama Administration they flew to guinea
Liberia and Sierra Leone for the
entirety of the crisis carefully
crafting schedules so that their staff
would never have to spend an overnight
in the Ebola stricken Nations passengers
departing on these flights were all
carefully screened to be sure they were
not exhibiting symptoms as Belgium and
the rest of the world certainly did not
want the virus spreading to their
countries and for the most part this
worked while a few isolated cases did
appear in various countries worldwide
mostly from health workers returning
home the epidemic was mostly contained
to guinea Liberia and Sierra Leone since
the virus's containment was successful
The Next Step was eradication once an
individual contracts Ebola there was not
a whole lot that could be done medically
to stop the virus treatment essentially
involves assuring that an individual has
the fluids and oxygen necessary for
their body to Stage the fight therefore
these steps necessary to reach complete
eradication of Ebola in West Africa were
simple but the implementation was tough
sensibola is not contagious until
symptoms arise the key was to just
isolate the infected as soon as symptoms
arose the issue though was that all
three of these countries did not have
the infrastructure necessary to treat
the thousands of cases that came in each
month not only that but in many cases
non-abola medical facilities actually
closed down in fear of the virus
spreading to their staff meaning that
for unrelated health issues people were
not getting the treatment they needed
all of the international organizations
working in the region scrambled to set
up enough Ebola treatment centers these
didn't need to be fancy at the minimum
they could just be tense but they were
crucial to make sure that the infected
patients were not being turned away from
treatment and sent back to their
communities these organizations
confronting the virus each have their
own Solution on how to stop the epidemic
and this of course led to disputes for
example the who held a position that the
best way to rehire hydrate Ebola
patients a crucial step given their
diarrhea and vomiting was to administer
fluids by IV this theoretically is true
it is more effective to rehydrate a
patient by IV but msf meanwhile took a
more pragmatic view saying that in the
conditions the most effective route was
to have patients drink rehydration
solution you see medical staff confined
to thick protective clothing could only
work for about an hour at a Time in the
West African heat therefore there was
almost always a shortage of medically
qualified staff and according to the msf
stance there just weren't enough
resources to set up and monitor all the
patient's IVs so in the end they were
actually getting less fluids overall all
the different organizations working in
the region took their own stance on this
debate as nobody could reach a
conclusion on Theory versus pragmatism
and given the variety of external
variables retrospective studies today
cannot even confidently include who was
right by October 2014 bed capacity
exceeded demand and so for the most part
it was no longer an issue of turning
patients away the other main concern in
terms of containing the virus was the
proper handling of the deceased as even
after death the virus can spread
cremation would have been by far the
safest option but in the cultures of
most of the affected places this method
of handling the dead is quite taboo
Liberia briefly required The Cremation
of victims much to the disdain of its
citizens but elsewhere specialized teams
assured the safe burial of the infected
a practice going against the culture of
extensive ceremonial burials in the
region but at this point in October 2014
nobody really knew whether they were at
the beginning middle or end of the
epidemic nobody could be really sure how
effective the efforts had been an
estimate made by the American CDC at
this point estimated the worst case
scenario as 1.4 million infected by
January 2015. October 2014 with
6987 cases of Ebola was by far the worst
month of the epidemic mercifully though
the worst case scenario did not come
true month by month cases dropped as
patient isolation Community engagement
and safe burial proved effective on May
9 2015 barely a year after the epidemic
started its exponential growth the World
Health Organization published its
momentous message the Ebola outbreak in
Liberia is over
more than a month had passed since the
last confirmed case meaning further
transmission was improbable that same
message came soon after for guinea and
Sierra Leone and by the new year 2016
Ebola was aside from a few small future
flare-ups eradicated in West Africa
quite soon after the statistics came in
28
652 infected and 11
325 dead in what was the worst Ebola
outbreak in history
unfortunately though history is now
repeating itself on July 17 2019 the
director general of the World Health
Organization announced that he had
declared the ongoing Ebola epidemic in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo a
public health emergency of international
concern the same highest level of who
emergency declared for the West African
epidemic five years ago
about two years ago Iran the first away
sponsorship on this channel I already
liked their suitcase when I first got it
but since then I've traveled with mine
to five continents a total of well over
a hundred thousand miles and I can now
confidently say that I love it all their
suitcases include tons of features like
a TSA approved lock removable laundry
bag built-in compression system super
smooth 300 degree spinner wheels and
their carry-on bags even include an
injectable battery to charge your
devices even as I write this video I'm
currently traveling around Europe with
her checked bag the newest one of mine
will that carry-on away bag I have is
back at home still in great shape after
hundreds of thousands of miles of travel
if you need a suitcase away bags are
just an incredible value for the quality
they are and since they have lifetime
warranties they will be the last two
cases you ever buy the decision is made
easier for you by two facts that they
have an 100-day unconditional trial
period and that by going to
awaytravel.com wendover20 and using the
code Wendover 20 you will get get 20 off
your first order