Social Worker Works with Caregivers who Survived Ebola
Athena Viscusi, MSW. Photo courtesy of Neighbor Works America.
People who survived Ebola appear to have a resistance to the disease, at least in the short term, according to this Chicago Tribune article. These people have become caregivers in hospitals for people sickened by Ebola.
They do not have to wear as much protective gear as doctors and nurses who have not contracted Ebola and can stay with patients longer.
National Association of Social Workers member Athena Viscusi is working alongside these volunteeers at the Elwa 3 hospital in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Liberia is one of the countries hardest hit by Ebola, which has infected about 9,000 people in West Africa.
So far doctors have not seen reinfection of survivors of the latest strain of Ebola.
“We don’t say people are immune for life because we don’t know,” said Viscusi, who works for Doctors Without Borders. “But we do tell them that they will not get Ebola again during this epidemic.”
Social workers are an integral part of the health care and mental health care systems in the United States and other countries. To learn more visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Health and Wellness website.
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Doctors without boarder services are incomplete without social workers. Doctors/Nurses should be in for their specialized field, while the Social Workers be left with theirs to accomplish the set goal.
“These people have become caregivers in hospitals for people sickened by Ebola.” … Well, these specimen that you write about must have been particularly blessed. While it seems to be true that survivors of Ebola seem to be immune in the longer term against reinfection (though Ebola is a fast-mutating virus so it’s probably too early to be sure), many Ebola survivors suffer for years if not life-long from follow-on symptoms like constant fatigue syndrome, memory loss, bad concentration etc. The list is quite long. I wonder if Ebola survivors can really be much help in a true epidemic which will, due its being exponential, always outpace the “supply” of immune survivors it may create even if all of them can “perform”.