1 10 55 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound It was tough at that time. As we started collecting samples, we started having cases escaping from Kenema because at that time, I think there was a problem with security. The whole structure was not too--so you had patients escaping from the treatment, coming to Freetown. [laughs] We had to be informed. There was a time when one of them was on television, so I had to go and locate the house, take him back to Kenema. At that time, in fact, there was BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] coverage there. I took him back. I said, "I brought your guy." So they took him. Then finally, we had our own case in Freetown. It was from Kissy Road. The guy was from Kenema, came, and was hidden in one of the clinics. They tried to deny, but we probed and we got him and took him to the holding center. At the holding center, there was also a problem in accepting [him] because they were running out of space. They said, "If we say we are going to accept everybody you bring here, it's going to be a problem." We said, "Please, this guy, let him be." So he was placed in holding, a sample was collected, tested, and it turned out positive. That was the first case for the Western Area, and then, the problems started. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Keimbe Isolation Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound I had seen pictures--videos of Ebola in Uganda. I had been thinking. First of all, we had been having cases that looked like Ebola in our country. If you look at Bong County, we are in the central region. In years back, this Phebe Hospital was like a referral center for all hospitals in the central region and the eastern region. Lassa fever is an endemic disease and it's also a viral hemorrhagic disease. So Ebola brought the [unclear] to Lassa fever. It was something that could make you afraid, especially once I started to read the history of what Ebola did in other countries. I heard this over the media, BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation], that Ebola was in Sierra Leone. Ebola was in Guinea. I started to follow the track of how this disease is traveling from Guinea to Sierra Leone. I was afraid. I heard this information very early in the morning when I woke up from bed. I must admit, I was afraid. I felt terrible. I couldn't sleep that night. What was in my mind is the surveillance system is paralyzed. The surveillance system is a one-man thing. How are we going to do this when our people have poor habits when it comes to health? Even our health workers. How are we going to fight this battle? That morning I went to work and my boss man, Dr. Arzoaquoi, was the first to tell me, "There's Ebola in Guinea, so come, come, let us look at the history of Ebola." I think I felt a little bit relieved because my chief had notified me also and he's concerned. We looked at the history of Ebola and I tell you, we carried out mass sensitization. He took to the airways. He went to hospitals. He went to clinics, and we talked to health workers--sensitized health workers, started to prepare even before Ebola could hit Liberia. When we had the first case in Liberia, Lofa County, we had Ebola in Lofa--Bong County is bordering Lofa County. So I knew that Bong County was also in a big problem. So we were waiting. We requested protective equipment. Other organizations came to our aid. The MAP International--Medical Assistance Program--they provided us the first set of protective equipment, the best. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dweh Initial Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [A]ll the way really through June, even parts of July, it was a pretty calm reaction. We had noticed that in Conakry, in the capital, they were starting to make some public health responses to it, in the sense of if you went to some of the fancier restaurants, they would make you wash your hands before you went in. Because soap and water aren't exactly the most ubiquitous out there, they would actually just have really chlorinated water, and so everyone was walking around with really dry hands [laughter] or just over-using hand sanitizer. But they also started implementing the--[laughs] they would just call it, it was like a fist bump for Ebola, instead of shaking hands. Small public health interventions and recommendations to help slow the spread of disease. We were starting to notice those things, but again, they didn't have a great impact on my day. I didn't really--it didn't really change what I was doing. It wasn't until closer to June and July that we started hearing about more cases, and there was more in Conakry, and more in other places and in other smaller villages in Guinea. Because again, someone would either be a patient or someone who had just passed away from Ebola, would be transported back to that village to be buried, and then funeral rites usually involve a lot of touching and a lot of handling of the body, and it spreads again. We saw those problems throughout the entire response. But this was just the beginnings of it, and we had just heard about these things. It wasn't through any news source, it was just through Peace Corps a little bit […] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bugli Initial Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound So these surveillance officers would go out usually on their motorbikes and there were so few motorbikes that they would--we and then I think it was Japan, yeah, I think Japan supplied some motorbikes there and we were able to buy some with some CDC Foundation money. But when we first got there, there were two ambulances in the entire district for a population of five hundred thousand people. And the other thing that was really pertinent at the time was there was no Ebola treatment unit and there was no lab, and at our peak I think on a weekly basis our peak was probably about one hundred fifty suspected cases that we worked up […] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Redd Resources Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound MONTGOMERY: When the outbreak started back in December of 2013, it was no different than any other Ebola outbreak. In fact, when I was there in April 2014 in northern Liberia, we were going out to the rural communities providing education and they were clueless as to what Ebola was. They'd never seen it before. So we were educating the community in contact tracing and recognizing Ebola. Basically, classical epidemiology and classical Ebola response, and that's how it started. There was a lot of fear and a lot of anger in the community early on, and that continued all the way through I would say until at least July or August of 2014. Yeah, 2014. Was that--yeah, I guess that's right. Because I was there in April 2014, because it's November 2015 now. I was there and went back. I was there in April and went back in August and went back again in October. Q: So many different stages of where it was at. MONTGOMERY: Yeah. I went from when it was basically a typical Ebola response--and in fact, because I had worked in Viral Special Pathogens and I was on the continent, Stuart Nichol, the branch chief at the time, he called me up and he's like, "Hey, we need someone to go out. Would you mind going out? We need someone who's had some experience and we just need someone who's calm and knows how to do this." And I said, "Sure, I'll do it, no problem." So I went out and we actually set up teams there and worked with the local Ministry of Health and kind of helped them set up their response system there. It really didn't come into real, full operational mode until July, August, when Kevin DeCock went out and helped them set up their incident management system. But we were doing some of the initial investigations in Liberia working with our counterparts in Guinea because at the time there were no cases in Sierra Leone. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Montgomery Response Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Around that time--well, I guess this was September 2014, and President Obama had come to visit, so that was a huge undertaking in terms of the planning, and the logistics, and those kinds of things. But also a critical turning point because during that visit is when he announced the DoD deployments for the MMUs [Monrovia Medical Unit], these facilities getting established to take care of people in West Africa. That was I think a critical turning point in the response, at least from the US government side. And I think for the world, too, because other people were more willing to pony up if the US was involved in a larger way. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Villar Visit Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound And then the next point was, of course, President [Barack H.] Obama's announcement that he was sending the military, and all this other stuff that came out in mid-September. That was the other interesting event because just the mere announcement that the US military was coming, literally the next morning--that was about eight o'clock at night Monrovia time, I mean it was what, three or four in the afternoon at CDC when he made the announcement, so eight o'clock in the evening. The next morning, the atmosphere in Monrovia had completely turned because it was this idea--we were all feeling a little isolated and forlorn and people didn't want anything to do with us because we all had Ebola. And suddenly that sense that Liberia was not in the fight alone, that the Americans were there even though we'd been there obviously throughout, that they were so serious that they were willing to send the military. It was almost as if Liberians themselves said we can do this, we will find a way to beat this. It was really an interesting morning because there was just a buzz in the air that there was going to be an end at some point. How long it would take we didn't know, but that there was going to be one. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Malac Visit Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Q: I know that your experience with Ebola continues as deputy IM, etcetera. Maybe we should transition into that. CACERES: Sure, so that was a great experience, too, because I felt like I had seen the Ebola response from the ground level, in the ring countries, so not the immediate countries that--of course, that would have been an entirely different experience. I really think that people that went there were doing heroic things, and kudos to those folks who were there in the midst of all of that. I didn't have the experience of the Ebola countries themselves, and I also didn't have the experience of the EOC central operations. So I was asked to volunteer for that. And I thought, at that point, when I volunteered, I thought I would be doing it--taking time away from FETP. But at the time, I was also in transition, or was about to find out that I was going to move out of FETP and into this new position. And so I asked my supervisor in the new position, whether I could honor that commitment. And they were all for it because the EOC just happens to be in the center where my new position is, so it was again, a nice segue. And really, the deputy IM position, at that point, I felt like I was helpful, but really, I was back-up. I would do things that were needed, and I enjoyed working with Barb [Barbara J.] Marston and Oliver [W. Morgan] and seeing the interactions that they had with Tom [Thomas R.] Frieden, with the folks on the [National] Security Council. We'd have those security-cleared meetings in the top-secret room, and give those briefings. I think I gained much more than I actually contributed there. But I was grateful for that experience. That was at the time when the countdowns were occurring, the initial countdowns. On the day that you'd have that twenty-one-day period or forty-two-day period, we would get another case, or another--and that was kind of frustrating. I think we were all in an atmosphere where we didn't want to talk about countdowns because of the jinx. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Caceres Atlanta Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Q: Was contact tracing something you'd had experience in before? ALIABADI: No. Q: What was that like then--just starting to pick that up? ALIABADI: It's a pretty straightforward concept, but it's not necessarily easy to execute because, again, there's people letting you talk to them, people being suspicious, and all that stuff plays into it. The theory is simple, but the execution isn't. I always, just for me, especially with that first appointment, when we'd be out talking to people in the field it would just be really hard for me not to immediately try to assume a doctor-patient relationship with people just because that's my training and where I'd been from. It's hard to push that away and not want to examine someone or like--you know. There was an incident in that first deployment as well when I was with the same WHO person who was doing contact tracing with me where he was like oh, there's been a death in a prison and it's unexplained and we need to go investigate. We went up to the prison, and this was not in Conakry, this was in the next prefecture a couple of hours away. We go there, and talking to the prison warden or whatever they're called, I'm like, who did the person share a cell with? Can we examine them--or I wasn't asking, can we examine them. I'm like, "Who's the doctor or the nurse here?" They brought that person in, and I'm like, "Tell me the symptoms, give me some history that I can say yeah, this person probably had Ebola versus they didn't." The story was all over the place. It was hard to understand what really had happened, but I was like, "Did you examine the people around this person?" He was like no, they hadn't. My instinct at that moment was like, bring them in. Someone needs to examine them. I want to do it, but we're not supposed to do that. They told us no exceptions, we're not supposed to handle patients and touch patients and care for them in a clinical way. That was hard for me to let go of. But when I saw that it wasn't being done, it was just frustrating. What ended up happening is we just called MSF and were like, just please come, somebody needs to actually lay hands on these patients. [laughs] Not lay hands, but look at them, observe them, examine them. They did, and it ended up being fine. Q: But when you look back, how do you feel about that? The prohibition on having that more doctor-patient relationship? ALIABADI: I think it's probably appropriate. We're there as epidemiologists, not as physicians. I think if there was a mechanism for us to have been able to provide direct care, I think a lot of us--some of the EIS officers that I know I'm sure would've taken on that role. But I can also understand that CDC wouldn't want to get involved in potential exposure of its staff to Ebola. I can understand. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Aliabadi Deployment Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ebola - Oral History Transcripts Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [W]e did. I think MSF are known as the experts in Ebola because they've been working on it since the outbreak first started in the [Democratic Republic of] Congo. They were the experts. Even before we set up the Ebola treatment centers, we got our team to come into Sierra Leone, and we put them with the MSF team in Bo so they could go through some training. We used the layout that MSF had for their treatment center and just improved on them slightly. Of course, there were experts from MSF, experts from the World Health Organization, even from the government side of it as well, the government of Sierra Leone. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hiranandani Collaboration Transcript