"Oh, dis Ebola business!" was a familiar exclamation in Sierra Leone's Krio language during my time in Sierra Leone's second city, Bo, this summer. Sierra Leone was the last of the three West Africa nations to confirm a case of Ebola, but it has arguably been hit the hardest in terms of numbers. The reality of Ebola is ghastly, unsettling and above all, scary, and its impact on the country has run along some familiar fault lines in Sierra Leonean society: namely deep mistrust in the authorities, outsiders and the healthcare system. But so far, the international community's response to the crisis has not gone any further than reflecting their own self-interest. In the early days, when cases were largely confined to Kailahun district on the Guinean border, public information on Ebola consisted of the odd public health poster and a looped cry of "EBOLA IS REAL" emanating from a speaker system placed in the middle of one of Bo's roundabouts. It was hardly convincing in an environment where deep suspicion of the existence of the virus was commonplace: many spoke of it in in the same terms as HIV/AIDS - as an imported, foreign disease. On a couple of [...]
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