Bronwyn Nicol

Bronwyn Nicol from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is a senior officer for public health in emergencies. I think the scale, we don't really have a very good picture of it. We know it's big, but we have a huge amount of suspect cases, way bigger than what we have in confirmed cases. And that's the piece that's really worrying right now. So how much do we not know about transmission chains?

How many deaths have we missed? Contact tracing, I mean, at the beginning of every outbreak, contact tracing is always hard. It's a struggle right now as well, and that's a bit of a bright product of the fact that people are scared, and that's normal, that's natural. And I think that's what's driving quite a bit of the community resistance to some of the standard response options that we have for Ebola, which includes safe burials, contact tracing, surveillance. But it is really that fear that is driving a lot of that.

No, and I mean that's one of the big challenges we're seeing right now, particularly around safe and dignified burials, which is a different process we need to follow for deaths of people who have died of confirmed or suspected hemorrhagic fever.

Se on vaihtoehto. Voit ajatella, mitä olisi tapahtunut omalla perheelläsi, jos kukaan, jonka rakastat, kuolee. Sitten ihmiset näyttävät, että heidät tuottavat perheellä, mutta heidät tuottavat henkilökohtaisen terveydenhuoltoon. Ei voi tehdä yleisiä asioita, joita voit tehdä, jotta voit sanoa hyvää huolta rakastajalle. Se tekee sitä hieman vaikeampaa. Se tekee sitä hieman vaikeampaa.

That was already mentioned as well as around this community engagement is making sure that communities are part of this process. How can we still do burials in a way that keeps everyone safe, but then can still respect tradition as much as we can? And that's not an easy balance to find. And that's something that will continue to evolve as this outbreak continues. This has been a very difficult time for you, hasn't it? Not just in terms of dealing with this. You've lost colleagues to Ebola.

Yeah, we sadly did lose three volunteers from the DRC Red Cross. They passed away in May. They passed away before the outbreak was actually declared. They had been working in support of Ministry of Health and regular long-term programming that they support in Ituri province, helping with burials for anything, any cause of death at the request of the government. So in those circumstances, they do wear personal protective equipment, but it's very minimal. It's just our standard precaution. It's not the full suite of protective equipment that we

messaging and discussion around vaccination and that's a piece that we're not talking about right now as we're saying there is no vaccine and that is where people are questioning what is happening in terms of saying we know what Ebola is. There is a vaccine. Why is the vaccine being hidden? Why is the vaccine not being shared with us? So going through the fact that there are different types of Ebola is not the easiest thing

It's complicated for even those who spend a lot of time working on Ebola. For the teams from DRC Red Cross who respond to this often. It's almost like going back 10 years to before we had the vaccine, which changes how we do our staff health protocols. And really, as was mentioned, affects the levels of fear that staff also have in the response. And people are scared, aren't they? And understandably scared of the virus, of contracting it.

How do you balance that fear? Because it drives us to do things that we shouldn't. I think this comes back to the point around community engagement and making sure that community concerns are heard.

että se ei ole jotain, mitä heille on laitettu. Ja se on paljon helpompi sanoa kuin tehtyä. Jos voisimme tehdä sitä vain yksin, se olisi paljon helpompaa vastata Ebolaan ja muihin ongelmiin. Meidän täytyy olla ymmärrettäviä siitä, että se vaatii aikaa, jotta voimme rakentaa ymmärrystä ympäristöjen kanssa, jotta voimme laittaa ympäristöliittymällisiä ratkaisuja vastaan.

How do we make quarantine, if that is something that government would like to do, how do we make that work for communities? How do we make sure that mental health is also taken into account? How do we make sure that we're also thinking around protection and gender concerns that are also quite prevalent in Eastern DRC? And these aren't easy topics, but it really is listening to communities, making sure we're feeding back on why things are happening in a certain way and being clear on what can be modified, but how can we still keep everyone safe?