A Victoria aid worker spent 28 days in Guinea at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak

A Victoria aid worker who spent 28 days in Guinea at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak said health precautions were so strict, she had no physical contact for the entire mission.

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“I went 28 days without touching another human being, other than an occasional fist bump,” said Gwen Eamer, a 28-year-old who worked in Canadian Red Cross communications in Guinea’s capital, Conakry.

“We didn’t shake hands. We didn’t come within a metre and a half of people.”

Almost 4,500 people have died of Ebola since December last year, according to the World Health Organization, with the vast majority of them in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Eamer’s job was to share stories of what’s happening and co-ordinate with international media and donors. She also set up information centres to educate West Africans about Ebola. “Education is a huge component of what needs to be done on the ground there,” she said.

The Red Cross has strict protocols for health monitoring and hygiene to make sure staff and volunteers are not infected. Everyone coming in and out of the Red Cross office would disinfect their hands and have their temperature taken.

Eamer said because her job wasn’t clinical, she is at low risk of becoming ill.

When she flew back to Canada on Oct. 2, Eamer underwent a detailed check by airport and border officials in several countries to ensure she was not carrying the disease. Eamer continues to monitor her temperature every day and has contacted Island Health for guidance on what to do in the unlikely event she gets sick.

Ebola is most commonly spread through caregiving ― either by medical professionals in hospitals or by family members in the home ― or burying the dead. Eamer said she attended the funeral of a female surgeon in her 30s who died after caring for a pregnant woman with Ebola. Dozens of health-care workers have died, putting further strain on a system that is already drastically stretched.

Crowded hospitals mean some Ebola patients are turned away and their care falls on family members. “It’s hard to tell a parent, ‘Your five-year-old is sick but don’t touch them,’ ” Eamer said. “For many people, it goes against the very fabric of social life, [not] caring for one another, [not] saying goodbye to someone when they pass.”

Eamer said she’s amazed at the selflessness of medical workers and body-removal volunteers who put their lives at risk. Bodies of Ebola victims have to be buried in a specific way, so the Red Cross has trained thousands of volunteers across West Africa to do the macabre task. “They’ve lost paying jobs because their employers are afraid of them contracting Ebola by dealing with the disease day after day.”

The effects of Ebola stretch beyond the thousands of people infected, she said. Women are afraid to go to hospitals to give birth or are turned away because they’re too swamped with Ebola cases. Food prices are rising because importers are reluctant to enter the country.

“It’s an emergency where anyone who can contribute is so badly needed,” Eamer said.
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