How the Fight Against Ebola Tested a Culture’s Traditions

submitted by George Hurlburt

The Kabia family grieves as the body of their day-old daughter is removed from their home in the Hill Cut neighborhood of Freetown, Sierra Leone, by a member of a safe burial team. The government mandates that all deaths in Ebola-infested districts be treated as potential Ebola cases and buried in accordance with safety procedures.
Photograph by Pete Muller, Prime for National Geographic

To stop infected bodies from spreading the disease in Sierra Leone, health officials persuaded local leaders to change how villagers mourned.

nationalgeographic.com - by Amy Maxmen - January 30, 2015

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone—A great quarrel followed the death of a pregnant Guinean woman in June. Mourners refused to allow a team of outsiders dressed in what looked like white space suits to bury her Ebola-infected corpse. If she was to be saved from eternal wandering and reach the village of the dead, they insisted, her fetus must be removed.

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