If medics in space suits inspire dread, then imagine the fear stoked by the arrival of foreigners with guns.
The Acholi people called it gemo—a bad spirit that arrived suddenly, like an ill wind—and they had strict protocols to deal with the deadly sickness that followed. Patients were quarantined at home and cared for by a gemo survivor. Two poles of elephant grass were erected outside, as a warning to other villagers to stay away. Dancing, arguing and sex were forbidden, rotten meat was to be scrupulously avoided and those recovering had to remain isolated for a lunar month. Those who succumbed were buried at the edge of the village.
It took the skills of a trailblazing anthropologist, WSU Professor Barry Hewlett, to discover that the Acholi, an ethnic group in northern Uganda, had their own rather effective method of dealing with Ebola. He inveigled his way into a World Health Organisation team tackling an Ebola outbreak in 2000, furnishing the first, in-depth anthropological analysis of how communities regard this killer in their midst. Ebola may be classed as an emerging disease, but the Acholi, he found, may well have been battling it for a century.
Recently, Professor Hewlett revealed his dismay at how the current outbreaks in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone were being handled by the international fraternity, whose urgent, well-meaning containment efforts were leaving scant room for the beliefs, customs and sensitivities of locals.
Read more about how WSU anthropologists are helping in the fight to control Ebola: