«The Ebola epidemic forces us to reflect. 2 patients out of 3 have died in Africa. One yes, two no. One survives and two die.
In Europe and the USA on the other hand, a total of 25 patients have been treated. 5 died and 20 survived. A 66% mortality rate in Africa, 20% in the rich countries. Why such a difference? Or, in less impersonal terms: why does the same illness leave room for hope, or condemn to death? The answer's simple: the difference lies in the "treatment". First and second class citizens: those with a right to treatment, and those without.

When I was a student I had the honour of meeting and listening to the great expert of ethics and medicine, Giulio Alfredo Maccacaro. In the early '70s he wrote "...nobody teaches or says, and so nobody knows, that before the industrial revolution the average lifespan wasn't affected by the social class one belonged to" and that after the industrial revolution "death and illness learnt to discriminate more and more severely and precisely between the rich and poor of a single collectivity...".
On the Titanic, only 4 out of 143 women travelling in first class died (and 3 of them chose voluntarily to stay aboard), while 81 out 179 women travelling in third class drowned with the ship.
Like the Ebola patients in Africa or in the rich countries.

We're all aware there's no specific treatment yet for Ebola, but treatment was possible "outside Africa", and it cured 80% of the patients.
So why not make it available "inside Africa" too, for example in Sierra Leone?

"There's a lack of resources in Africa" - that's the refrain, the "explanation" that then justifies the decision to go on discriminating, to go on with the medicine "for the poor".
"More complex forms of treatment have to be evaluated, you have to consider the context..." is the phrase that's endlessly repeated at every meeting by the various organisations, institutions and experts.
We know the context of Africa, and of Sierra Leone: we've been working there for 14 years. But we're not here to justify it. On the contrary, we want and have to change it. That's the huge challenge facing Emergency's international and local staff: to build a context of shared rights, and offer medical treatment without any type of discrimination. The tools made available to save a life (a few or a lot, effective or useless) must be made available to everyone.

No resources? Let's create them.

There's never been any form of intensive care for Ebola (and, unfortunately, not only for Ebola) in Africa? Let's do it.

In Europe and in the USA all the patients have been treated (and 4 out of 5 survived) in Intensive Care Units, not through isolation only, and have received 24/7 assistance.
It has to be done, and it can be done. It's a moral and scientific duty, and it's a feasible project: these photos are the proof. We're not here in Sierra Leone just to offer "sympathy", but real medical care.

-- Gino Strada

Freetown, Sierra Leone, January 30, 2015»