Science Forward

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/world/africa/an-ebola-orphans-plea-in-africa-do-you-want-me.html?ref=science

Ebola frightened the world for about a week, and then disappeared from most people’s news feeds as its impact in the West was minimal. From a strictly scientific standpoint, we can be relieved to know that its threat to our society is nearly nonexistent and our healthcare infrastructure is quite sufficient to deal with controlling single cases. As a poster at the Macaulay Seminar 3 Poster Session showed, our number of cases of Ebola is invisible on a graph when compared to African nations. Sparsely placed infographics on the subway tell us that if someone has no symptoms, we won’t catch Ebola from them. Buzzfeed posts mocked the scare that occured after an individual with symptoms took the subway.

It’s easy for us to now sit back and feel able to relax after taking notice of the disease for a few days. But Ebola’s impact in countries like Sierra Leone reaches even beyond its casualties.

This NYT article examines the case of an Ebola orphan, named “Sweetie Sweetie” because her mother was delirious when she entered the clinic, and died before anyone could find out where the child’s relatives could be. Sweetie got her name when nurses witnessed her, though only four, trying to help her mother by feeding her, urging her to take her medicine, and even washing her mother’s dirty clothes. But now Sweetie is alone. She lives in a social care home, orphaned and alone, arguably in worse straights than even AIDS orphans, who are often claimed by relatives. In populations undereducated about Ebola and stricken by fear through its visible gruesome effects, there are few who are willing to take in children whose parents died from the disease. Children are seen as more likely carriers as they are less hygienic and aware of hazards than adults.

This case study shows the intersections of science, education, and society. It is easy to class Ebola and other diseases as easily controlled and minimized with scientific developments and proper healthcare infrastructure. But the emotional and social impacts cannot be overlooked. Even after the Ebola epidemic is quelled, orphans like Sweetie will be left behind, stigmatized for their ties to the disease that people would much rather forget. We should be reminded that even while medicine can save lives,  it takes education and human empathy to really heal the scars left behind.

Fortunately, it seems that a healthcare worker from the clinic where her mother died would like to adopt Sweetie, whose beautiful heart attracted the worker’s affection. But this case is atypical. Before we class Ebola as simply another disease of the undeveloped world, we should remember that it has an impact reaching beyond its deaths. It poses a problem far greater than a strictly scientific one, as do most issues labelled “scientific.” To isolate issues tied to a multitude of factors in this way is to never truly approach solving them with humanity, or even finality.