New Brunswick’s top doctor is preparing to join the fight against Ebola on the ground in Africa, just as the World Health Organization announced that the deadly virus is spreading faster than efforts to control it.
A combined total of 3,500 cases of the virus have been diagnosed in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal so far. Dr. Eilish Cleary, New Brunswick’s chief medical officer of health, says she has worked before as a medical student in Tanzania and as a fully qualified doctor in Sierre Leone.
“I was dealing with cases of malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis,” she says.
Cleary will travel to Nigeria later this month with the World Health Organization in order to act as a public health advisor in the fight against Ebola.
“The work of public health is to really try and interrupt that transmission and identify the factors that allow its spread,” says Cleary.
The World Health Organization says at least $600 million will be needed to fight the outbreak. The United Nations says every country in the world needs to be thinking right now about what it can do to help.
Dr. Ken Kierstead is with the New Brunswick-based Lyceum Group – an organization that runs a medical centre near the hardest-hit area in Guinea. Kierstead says all money raised by Lyceum will go towards Ebola education, which he says is crucial to stopping the spread of the virus.
“I was born in Africa of New Brunswick missionary parents, so for me, it’s a return to my ancestral continent,” says Kierstead. “We can raise enough money to sensitize people. From village to village our staff are going...and training the people on what transmits Ebola, what is Ebola."
As for Cleary, she says she is aware she is entering a potentially dangerous situation.
“But I think the training kicks in and we all do our job as professionals and do the best job we can while taking the appropriate precautions to protect ourselves.”
Cleary leaves for Africa on Sept. 15. Her assignment is expected to last eight to 10 weeks.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Nick Moore
