Traditional healer called back to remove curse of first Ebola-affected village in Guinea

ASSOCIATED PRESS By YOUSSOUF BAH                       Feb. 25, 2015
MELIANDOU, Guinea (AP) — Here at ground zero of West Africa's Ebola outbreak, a local traditional healer returned to complete the removal of a curse residents believe could have been placed on their village in Guinea.

In this photo taken on Feb. 23, 2015, traditional healers, right, take part in a exorcism as villagers hand them a chicken, in Meliandou, Guinea. Here at ground zero of West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, a local traditional healer returned to complete the removal of a curse residents believe could have been placed on their village in Guinea. (AP Photo/Youssouf Bah)

It is the same village where experts believe 2-year-old Emile Ouamouno was the first person to have died from Ebola, on Dec. 28, 2013, in the outbreak that has slowed in recent months but has not been completely stamped out....Hundreds abandoned the village, believing the Ouamouno family or the entire village, was cursed, the village chief Amadou Kamano remembered.

Meliandou villagers are poor, stigmatized and still deeply suspicious about who or what brought the disease that has devastated their lives. Here, as in many other villages across Ebola country, people still believe that Ebola was spread on purpose by people seeking some type of gain.

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http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/02/25/traditional-healer-returns-to-first-ebola-affected-village