Ebola Outbreak: 2014 – Ten Years Later, Applying the Lessons for Success

In Liberia, only very young children do not recall the Ebola virus disease outbreak that ravaged the country from 2014 to 2016. But even the smallest child may have daily reminders of how their parents and other elders managed during the outbreak.  That’s especially true for the youngest son of Americares senior officer for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and midwife educator, Damawah Saye: Her son’s name describes the victory she had over the virus that threatened her, her family, community, country and region.

In 2014, Saye  was a midwife and supervisor for the maternity unit in the Bomi County hospital, providing direct care to patients.  When the Liberian Ministry of Health sent alerts, Saye was among the first to hear about Ebola. The threat seemed far away, until a health worker and his family who had been brought to the hospital tested positive for the virus.  Then she knew that she, her family and colleagues were all at risk. “I was five months pregnant,” she says, “so I was afraid.”

When the health worker and his family died and the hospital closed except for essential services, Saye left the county, isolating at her home in Monrovia for four days before reuniting with her family. For the health of her baby — and herself — Saye knew she had to keep the virus away, but, at the same time, stay close to the best health care available to her.  “I didn’t want to go to a local clinic if I had pregnancy complications they couldn’t handle,” she says. So, she continued her antenatal care at JFK Hospital, the best in Monrovia. But JFK was also the site of an Ebola treatment unit, where people with positive cases were sent for the kind of round-the-clock care that could save their lives. “At JFK I would receive obstetric care, that’s why I took the risk: I was looking at Ebola but also normal outcomes of the pregnancy,” says Saye.

The Ebola virus can be very contagious; infected people carry the virus in their bodily fluids, including blood and saliva. If a person is ill, they will typically have fever, vomiting and diarrhea, shedding the virus. If a person dies, their body will still shed live virus. Ebola treatment units are set up like a maze, to trap the virus at every turn. There are systems of donning and doffing masks, gloves, gowns, booties and washing with a diluted bleach solution. But even so – from 2014 to 2016, across Liberia, more than 10,000 thousand people, including health workers, became infected and 4,800 people died.

For months, each day after work, Saye closed herself off from her children and her mother: She followed every precaution and kept working at the hospital as a clinic midwife. Then – in December 2014 – Saye delivered a healthy baby boy: “He is my success story from Ebola,” she says, “so I named him Success.”

Now, Saye applies infection vigilance in her job as a midwife educator for Americares Liberia at every opportunity. “So as a midwife and an educator with Ebola experience I always tell my students, one thing to consider is universal precautions – consider every infectious disease as a public health concern.” Don’t wait, she says, “You can use two to five minutes to share relevant information about infection prevention with those you have as your audience at that time.”  

Her son, who will be 10 in December 2024, knows this too. “I asked him, ‘When do you wash your hands at school,’” and when he told her, “There is one sink in the bathroom,” Saye took that opportunity to make a change. “I worked alongside the school, and now there is a handwashing bucket at the entrance, so everyone can wash their hands entering and leaving the school,” she says.

That handwashing station is for Success, says Saye, and for everyone, in the fight against infectious disease.