--- title: Ebola Continues to Punish Survivors One Year After Start of Outbreak description: Ebola has almost disappeared, but the suffering continues and little has been done to fix the health services that could not stop it canonical: https://time.com/3754599/ebola-lessons-one-year-on/ author: Aryn Baker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-23T17:34:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:40:58.949Z article:section: Health og:title: Ebola Continues to Punish Survivors One Year After Start of Outbreak og:description: Ebola has almost disappeared, but the suffering continues and little has been done to fix the health services that could not stop it og:url: https://time.com/3754599/ebola-lessons-one-year-on/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52e8f221783a50d3/698784c9cd6848f55609a47d/ebola-liberia1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Ebola Liberia og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ebola Continues to Punish Survivors One Year After Start of Outbreak twitter:description: Ebola has almost disappeared, but the suffering continues and little has been done to fix the health services that could not stop it twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52e8f221783a50d3/698784c9cd6848f55609a47d/ebola-liberia1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ebola Continues to Punish Survivors One Year After Start of Outbreak > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=b9d6b00f-b2f9-4d53-a363-cbea396c8c40&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Ebola Fighters in West Africa - TIME's Person of the Year 2014 [Watch (HLS stream): Ebola Fighters in West Africa - TIME's Person of the Year 2014](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/laroqNbt.m3u8) (10:47)  _Published 2014-12-10. Hundreds of doctors, nurses and health workers work every day to treat and contain the outbreak in the hot zone_ by [Aryn Baker](https://time.com/author/aryn-baker/) ## Aryn Baker Mar 23, 2015 5:34 PM UTC  A woman mourns at the grave of her late brother at the National Cemetry on Disco Hill, Margibi County, Liberia, on March 11, 2015 A woman mourns at the grave of her late brother at the National Cemetry on Disco Hill, Margibi County, Liberia, on March 11, 2015 Ahmed Jallanzo—EPA by [Aryn Baker](https://time.com/author/aryn-baker/) ## Aryn Baker Mar 23, 2015 5:34 PM UTC Every time Foday Gallah slings himself into the passenger seat of his ambulance, he gives a small prayer of thanks that he is still alive. Eight months ago the Monrovia-based ambulance supervisor [caught Ebola from a patient](http://time.com/3457675/one-mans-story-of-surviving-ebola/) as the virus rampaged through Liberia’s capital city. But even in the throes of agonizing joint pain that is characteristic of the deadly disease, he wanted nothing more than to be back in his ambulance again, helping his fellow Liberians. He got his wish. Speaking to TIME on his mobile phone as his ambulance makes its daily rounds — so far two women in labor and a man with severe breathing problems — he describes his recovery and plans for his upcoming wedding. Aside from increased eye sensitivity, a common Ebola-survivor complaint, “I’m doing just great, thanks be to God. But others, man, they aren’t doing so well.” And Gallah isn’t just talking about side effects. On Sept. 26, 2014, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released an [alarming report](http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/qa-mmwr-estimating-future-cases.html) that suggested that as many as 1.4 million Liberians and Sierra Leoneans could be infected with Ebola by January if adequate precautions were not taken. That worst-case scenario garnered international attention and galvanized local action, helping scale down the exponential spread of the disease over the course of several months. Now, one year since the [declaration](http://time.com/47018/ebola-breaks-out-in-west-africa/) of what went on to become the largest outbreak of Ebola in history, the total number of [confirmed cases](http://apps.who.int/ebola/current-situation/ebola-situation-report-18-march-2015) in West Africa, or coming from West Africa, stands at 24,701, with more than 10,194 dead. Though those numbers continue to rise, it’s a far cry from how bad it could have been. Still, the impact of Ebola on the [societies](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-health-ebola-women-idUSKBN0ME30520150318) and the economies of the three West African nations most affected — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — has been devastating. After a four-month convalescence, Gallah was able to get his job back with the ambulance service. Not all survivors were so lucky, he says. Most still struggle to find jobs, from friends at the clinic where he was treated, to Ebola patients he picked up and others he met through a newly formed survivors group. Many have been kicked out by landlords for failure to pay rent on time, or because fear of the disease is still strong in Liberia. But the worst, he says, are the [Ebola orphans](http://time.com/3453660/ebola-orphans/), the children who lost one or both parents to the disease and now must rely on extended family members for food, clothing, support and school fees. In a country where 84% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, an extra mouth to feed can be an insurmountable burden. The government has stepped in with foster care and orphanages, but that only helps the most extreme cases — children whose entire families have been wiped out. The others fall through the cracks. In his neighborhood alone Gallah knows of at least seven children who are now living with aunts, uncles and cousins who can barely get by. Many are survivors themselves. “It’s pathetic. These orphans are the worst side effect of Ebola, and no one is doing anything to help them.” Gallah, along with other members of his survivors group, now puts aside 100 Liberian dollars ($1) per month for an Ebola-orphans’ fund to help pay for school fees. If nothing is done soon to help in the aftermath of Ebola, he says, “worse than having Ebola will be the life of those who survived it.” Iris Martor, a [nurse](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-nurses/) and program director at the [More Than Me Academy](https://morethanme.org), a free school for disadvantaged girls in Monrovia that was forced to shut its doors when Ebola tore through Liberia’s capital city in August, wants to see the organization expand its mission to educate Ebola orphans. For the moment though, she wants to make sure that the national focus on eradicating Ebola doesn’t waver. At the peak of the epidemic**,** Martor helped organize a team of nurses to monitor health conditions in some of Monrovia’s most affected slums, and knows all too well how the virus can leap from person to person in crowded quarters. To this day she still cannot bring herself to hug or shake hands with friends. Her caution is warranted. After a hopeful three-week lull since the last reported case of Ebola in Liberia, the World Health Organization [announced a new case ](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/world/africa/liberia-reports-first-ebola-case-in-weeks.html?%5Fr=0)on Friday. Noting that both of Liberia’s neighbors have seen [worrying upticks](http://time.com/3750704/guinea-ebola-surge/) in case counts, Martor says vigilance is a must. “As long as Guinea and Sierra Leone still have problems, Liberia will be at risk. Only when all three countries are free from Ebola can we put it all in the past. Only then can we really start thinking about the future.” ### Inside the Ebola Crisis: The Images that Moved them Most  Pete Muller, Aug. 26, 2014\. Sengema, Sierra Leone."The rain started shortly after a small team of Red Cross burial workers approached the body. The deceased man, reportedly in his mid-sixties, collapsed and died outside his remote home more than a day before the burial team arrived. Having received instructions from officials that bodies of Ebola victims are extremely contagious, his family members placed a sheet over his body, marked a cordon in the sand, and called the Red Cross. With approximately 20 burial workers serving all of Kailahun district, an area the size of Rhode Island and rife with Ebola, the team had a backlog of cases. His family endured the presence of his body, laying prone and exposed to the elements, for more than 24 hours. As the team removed the sheet, the stench of death filled the air. The white cloth around the man’s head was crimson with blood. As burial workers sprayed him with chlorine, family members erupted with emotion. I was moved imagining how I might respond if I were in the situation. To me, this picture represents the range of Ebola’s emotional impact. In the two women, we see the devastation and loss that the virus causes. In the faces of the men, we see a sense of despondence, disbelief and suspicion that also defines the response. It was a difficult but necessary picture to make." Pete Muller—Prime for the Washington Post   Kieran Kesner, Aug. 28, 2014\. Monrovia, Liberia. "This is a photograph of the first person I saw who had died from the Ebola virus in West Point, Monrovia. After the Liberian government mandated all schools be shut down in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus, the empty rooms of this school were converted into a temporary Ebola holding center. I entered the building alone and photographed the woman from a distance. I began to make my way closer to her, being careful to avoid the puddles of vomit and other pools of still liquid on the cement floor. Standing over her, I noticed the unbroken beads of sweat that remained on her face and realized the woman had only died a few hours before. I took a few steps back as a body removal team entered the room. Up until this point, to me, Ebola deaths seemed like statistics, but suddenly it had become real. I became enveloped in fear: fear of the invisible killer in the room, fear that I might have made a mistake, fear that I wouldn’t know for days whether or not I was sick, and fear that I would infect my family and loved ones. I desperately wanted to leave the room, to leave the country, to be home, but I couldn’t. I continued to photograph. I watched as the men burdened with the task of removing her body, clad all in angel white, lifted the woman from her mattress and placed her in a body bag on the floor. I photographed as they sprayed her one last time with disinfectant and zipped it shut." Kieran Kesner—The Wall Street Journal  Mohammed Elshamy, Aug. 25, 2014\. Lango village, Kenema, Sierra Leone. "I arrived to Langtown village, Sierra Leone,with a team of volunteers from Kenema governmental hospital. They were there to bury Baindu-Koruma a female victim of the Ebola virus. Everyone was silent. She had been dead for two days, and everyone was terrified of going inside. As the volunteers left with the body, her husband, Idriss Koruma (who can be seen center) and relatives burst into tears. They had only realized then, it seemed, that she was gone. The photo moved me because I felt helpless for the man – having a loved one laying on a bed but you can't say goodbye, as this is the least a human could do for one last time, but in a situation like this you can't because you'll probably get the virus and die as well." Mohammed Elshamy—Anadolu/Getty Images  John Moore, Aug. 15, 2014\. Monrovia, Liberia. "I arrived to Liberia the night before I entered the blue room. It was in a primary school, originally funded by USAID money, which had been closed due to the Ebola epidemic. The Liberian Ministry of Health had decided to open an Ebola observation ward there, and it was located in the West Point township of Liberia's capital of Monrovia. People were arriving to the school in ambulances and being brought in one by one. I photographed them as they made their way, weakly, into the dark building, which had neither electricity nor running water. The following day I returned to the school. I went back to the same blue room and, although the children had been moved to the classroom next door, new patients had arrived overnight. Two of them were now dead, lying on the floor, in pools of liquid. A third, a shirtless man named Ibrahim, sat near a column in the center of the room. Health workers asked him to try and move to another room, so they would be separated from the corpses lying nearby. I watched as Ibrahim struggled to rise. He got to his feet and began staggering towards the door. Just before he reached the threshold, he fell straight backwards, his head hitting hard on the concrete floor. His wife, Umu rushed into the room and stood over him, horrified, afraid to touch him, unsure what to do. A blank blackboard hung behind her on the wall." John Moore—Getty Images  Benedicte Kurzen, September 2014."From early morning till late in the afternoon, we followed the Liberian Red Cross. They have a list of people who died and they go to their communities to collect the bodies. Every time the Red Cross workers do the same thing: they wear protective clothing, interview the family, spray the perimeter and the room, and the body. They carefully open the body bag, carry the body outside for pick up — sprayers and volunteers facing each other — and later remove their protective clothing as carefully as they can. Their work is measured, slow: any direct contact with the dead person's body can be dangerous. In this photo, it is all about the gesture. In this chlorinated, silent corridor, there is little else that can convey humanity besides this gesture. This is one human helping another." Benedicte Kurzen—NOOR  Dominique Faget, Aug. 26, 2014\. Bandor, near Monrovia, Liberia. "I went with a team from the Liberian Red Cross to Bandor from Monrovia to pick up five dead people who had been infected with the Ebola virus. After photographing the removal of three bodies, including a young pregnant woman, I followed the team to a small cottage house where we had heard the bodies of a dead couple were. Once there, one of the Red Cross team responsible for the removal of their bodies gestured to me, patting his heart — indicating that these people were still alive. I then approached and photographed this man lying silently in the doorway of his home. I wondered how many days this poor sick man, like hundreds of others, had been waiting alone? Dominique Faget—AFP  Ahmed Jallanzo, Aug. 20, 2014\. Monrovia, Liberia."Violence had broken out in the slum township of West Point as the government tried to quarantine tens of thousands of residents in order to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. As I walked through the town to cover the reactions of residents towards security forces, I saw 15-year-old Shakie Kamara bleeding profusely, a pool of blood forming around him, with his right hand placed underneath his broken leg to keep it in balance. He was caught in clashes with police and had been shot. The ambulance service was somewhat slow to respond as he repeatedly cried for help. The tragic irony is that no one dared try to help for fear of contracting the Ebola virus from his blood and bodily fluids, as avoiding contact is one of the measures of preventing the disease from spreading. Ahmed Jallanzo—EPA  Tommy Trenchard, Aug. 20, 2014\. Monrovia, Liberia. "What's tragic about the case of 15-year-old Shackie Kamara is how needlessly he died. \[He was shot in the legs during clashes with police\]. Ebola didn't kill him, but the fear, panic and confusion it creates led to the circumstances in which he died. He is a symbol of what Ebola can do to a country or a community. The quarantine of West Point was heavily criticized and lifted shortly afterwards. It achieved little, and Ebola remains rife throughout the city. It is also telling that he died of a treatable wound. After health staff started getting ill and hospitals became seen as sites of infection, the whole health system collapsed. If you get sick or injured in Monrovia, there is simply nowhere to go." Tommy Trenchard—NPR  Glenna Gordon, Sept. 29, 2014\. Monrovia, Liberia."Ebola is a disease that divides husband and wife, mother and child, doctor and patient. Health care workers in protective gear that look like space suits attend to patients. Men with chlorine spray-cans take away bodies. Families aren't given the chance to say goodbye to their loved ones. Because the virus is transmitted through touch, it overrides the basic human need for contact and connection. In this picture, health care workers hold hands and pray before doing the risky work of entering an Ebola isolation ward. They find a way to connect despite the layers of latex. No one wants to be alone when facing Ebola. I'm not a religious person. At times like this though, there's little to do but hold hands and pray for each other." Glenna Gordon—The Wall Street Journal  Sylvain Cherkaoui, April 19, 2014\. Gueckedou, Guinea."Doctors Without Borders sent me to Guekedou Forest in Guinea to cover the current Ebola crisis. After receiving an alert a team of doctors went to look for a woman who was exhibiting symptoms of the Ebola virus. When one doctor took her temperature, it was confirmed: she was infected and had to be admitted to the care center. After donning protective gear, I followed her into the field hospital and took this picture when health care workers told Finda that she had Ebola. What I did not know was that she had an extremely high viral concentration. The next morning, members of her family came to visit. Not long after, maybe minutes later, a nurse told me that Finda had died during the night. It happened so fast, I was shocked and deeply moved." Following a call, an MSF team goes to consult Finda Marie Kamano, 33 years, she feels great weakness with vomiting and dysentery. With fever, and nose bleeds, what the symptoms are caused by the Ebola virus. After giving her a little water to drink, the woman doctor must tell her that her test is positive to Ebola, Finda remains impassive, several members of his family have died during the last weeks. Sylvain Cherkaoui—Cosmos/Redux for MSF For his part, [Dr. Philip Zokonis Ireland](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-doctors/) has already started thinking about the future. Ireland contracted Ebola while working at Monrovia’s John F. Kennedy Medical Center in July. His recovery was long and difficult, plagued by anger, depression and what he thought at the time might be permanent nerve damage in his hands. Eventually his appetite, his optimism and his manual dexterity returned, and he says he is a better guitar player now than before Ebola. But the anger remains, he says by phone from J.F.K. Hospital, where he has returned to his old job as a clinician. “Most of my anger had to do with how Liberia’s health care delivery system let us down. So I have decided to use the rest of my life span to develop better health care in Liberia.” He has set himself an arduous task. With only 50 practicing doctors for a nation of 4 million, Liberia’s health care system was already among the worst in the world when Ebola struck, the result of deep poverty and devastating civil war. Ebola laid bare the dangers of physician shortages, a lack of equipment, funding inadequacies and poor communication between clinics, hospitals and the country’s Health Ministry. “We need help. And I am not talking a couple of million dollars here or there,” he says, citing the old proverb about teaching a man to fish. “We need help in the form of doctors and public-health experts who can teach us to have a better public-health system. We need medical schools, and labs. We need to convince our government that public health is the No. 1 priority.” Already he is noticing a worrying lack of government focus on strengthening the system. Ebola, he warns, will burn itself out eventually. “But if we don’t do anything significant to improve our health system, especially health education, it could come back. It might be Ebola, or it might even be worse.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I have spent five weeks in Liberia over the past three months [ NOISE ] reporting on an outbreak of Ebola that, in the words of one Liberian doctor I met, threatened to erase his country from the map of Africa. Guys, look out. Ebola is a devastating disease [ NOISE ] and the reporting was both heart wrenching and horrifying. Have you touched him? Don't touch him. But for every time I wrote about rising death tolls, I met extraordinary men and women who risked everything from disease to distrust and even death, to stop Ebola from taking more lives. Ebola is very scary. You have to have courage. [ MUSIC ] One of the heights of Ebola. There was nowhere for anyone to go. There's dead bodies on the ground. [ MUSIC ] These are their stories. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ] [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] Being a doctor in Liberia is just sacrificial from beginning to end. You're not making anything. It's almost like a volunteer job. That's not [ UNKNOWN ]. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] My first experience as an Ebola patient the lab technician walked in with a spacesuit and I mean, he was taking every precaution not to touch and not to get infected himself. I could see the fear in his eyes. Eyes. [ MUSIC ] When the test results came back that evening and I was told that I was Ebola positive, something strange happened. I relaxed, okay, because I was happy it was not malaria. [ MUSIC ] Luckily we got. A place at Elwa Treatment Center, where they found a spot. Sadly, somebody had just passed and I was going to take their spot. Interestingly, they put me into a room where I had the guy who we assume I got the infection from. Lying right, right next to me. [ MUSIC ] At one time I was hiccupping with every breath, so they thought I, I, I wasn't gonna make it. And they were even discussing whether I would be cremated or buried. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] I'm thankful to just be alive, because with such a close call, I consider myself like somebody who has come back from the dead. [ APPLAUSE ] [ NOISE [ My name is Katie Meyler and I'm the founder of More Than Me. [ MUSIC ] I wasn't really afraid for our girls or for More Than Me because it was in Lofa County, it was far away. And who is Esther? Where's Esther? [ MUSIC ] Eventually, it hit JFK Hospital, which is one of the main hospitals here in the capital, and that's when people started to get afraid. Everyone's thinking, if this thing gets to West Point, the country's in trouble, because it's the most densely populated area in West Africa. [ MUSIC ] So we got this ambulance specifically for West Point. And we pull up to Redemption Hospital and there pulling dead bodies out of Redemption. Doesn't seem like people are moving fast enough and like everyone has accepted. It feels like their families have accepted their death. [ MUSIC ] In this crazy scene of death and dying and dead bodies, and screaming and crying and mourning. Is this cute little three to four year old girl with her pink party dress on just sitting on the steps of this ambulance with no symptoms of Ebola. Do you wanna doll baby? Yeah, I'll bring you one. My name Katie. Nice to meet you. I love you. Her mom died and now the girl had nowhere to go. [ MUSIC ] Guideon. Yeah? Please, please keep her safe away from harm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I [ CROSSTALK ]. This was going on all over the place. I mean, I started to see it more and more. And she was the first child I got close to. And I was like, she cannot stay at Redemption Hospital cuz if this girl, she might have Ebola, she might not. If she doesn't have it, she's definitely gonna get it and most likely she'll die because there's no help here are Redemption. [ NOISE ] So that's what this house became. It was called Housing Observation and Pediatric Evaluation for 21 days. Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] So that was the first child. And one of the nurses brought her here. [ FOREIGN ] But only for like extreme emergencies, where like kids literally would be homeless. Laugh. [ LAUGH ] My name is Foday Galla. I happen to be the supervisor of the district number 13 ambulances. [ MUSIC ] And I believe it was my calling so once I'm called to do this, I always love to help people. [ MUSIC ] You have to have passion. You have to have feelings. You have to have care. [ MUSIC ] I actually got sick trying to help a family of eight. [ MUSIC ] That I really tried to help, but seven of them had to lose their life to the Ebola virus. [ NOISE ] [ UNKNOWN ] The worst part was that people that I moved in with in the ETU, they died. They died right before my eyes. [ NOISE ] So I feel good picking up people and driving them to the centers and seeing them coming out. So this is why, this is the reason why. Why I really love to help to take people to the center, have them treated, and have them come home to their families. [ MUSIC ] Hello. What I went through in life, some of those things have had impact on. Dr. Brown. My desire to help, to relieve people out of their suffering. There is a family of nine, nine. I think there were about 14 that got infected. And out of the 14, we have. Nine survivors. There are a lot of things I've really learned from this outbreak. One of which is being able to look around yourself and see what you can use that's available. To find a remedy to the situation. Than just sitting and waiting for a remedy from outside. What's in your power, how you can make use of what's available. [ MUSIC ] My name's Ella Watson- Stryker. I'm working with MSF as a health promoter, that means that my job is primarily focused on making sure that people have the information they need about Ebola. When you have countries where there is no functioning disease surveillance system, it means that a virus can circulate for months in a rural area without anyone noticing. Wasn't until a doctor was infected and died that someone started to say, wait a minute, this is not normal, we need to investigate. [ MUSIC ] This is something that we allow to happen. It will continue in this way until better systems are put in place. And if anything comes out of this outbreak, I hope, it's that we learn how to be better at looking for, at health status in rural and urban communities, both. In areas where people don't have good access to healthcare. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] When. [ MUSIC ] We started having survivors here at the unit. Then people started coming to the E. T. U. in large numbers. What is your total number of releases? I know you are in one of those units that have released more people. Total number of releases. I know we have more than [ MUSIC ] I'm doing it because if I wasn't here on the ground, doing my job, I would be in the US reading newspapers and saying someone needs to be doing something. I thought my whole life I had nothing. And here are people who don't have drinking water or a hospital in their villages. And I wanted to help, you know? And regardless of your religion, I think that like, I know for sure like even if I died during Ebola, at least I lived for something I believed in. Can you smile? [ LAUGH ] Somebody has to. To do the job. I'm looking at it like we're fighting a war. And we all have to play our part, and I just feel that it's a duty, that I have to go back. Okay, until we can get rid of it entirely. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. 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