U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power Sees Signs Of Hope In West Africa
Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, just returned from a four-day trip to all three of West Africa's Ebola-stricken countries. Speaking with Melissa Block of All Things Considered, she said she saw promising signs of recovery but had also gained a sense of just how much work must still be done.
In Liberia, Power was struck by the gratitude expressed to the United States for "rescuing these countries in their hour of greatest need."
A Liberian told her: "America is the only country that is treating us like we are Nina Pham [the Dallas nurse recently declared Ebola-free]. America is hugging us like President Obama hugged Nina Pham."
The U.S. has deployed 3,000 ground troops to help construct 17 Ebola treatment units in Liberia, and Power said the effect is already noticeable. She visited a medical laboratory six hours away from the capital, Monrovia, where the assistance of U.S. troops had helped cut the wait time for results of an Ebola test from a week to just a few hours. This means fewer people will become infected by spending days waiting with already diagnosed Ebola patients to find out their diagnosis. And more beds will be available for those who actually have the disease.
"The morale of everyone associated with the anti-Ebola effort is increasing, and the recruitment of local workers was increasing," Power said. "The knowledge that there are more beds has all these knock-on effects." People are more likely to "come forward and be a hygienist or a sanitation worker knowing there will be a place for [them] if protocol is breached" and they fall ill.
She also saw better safety precautions resulting from improved training efforts. And employees and volunteers are sticking with assignments longer.
But Power says these promising signs aren't reflected evenly across the infection zone. Efforts in Monrovia and Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, still need to be replicated outside these central cities, especially in rural areas where the disease continues to spread:
"It does show you what can be scaled, if you have the resources, if you have the international health workers, if you have the helicopters to get to the more distant areas."
Power, who didn't interact with patients or enter an Ebola treatment unit, was screened when she arrived back in the U.S., then allowed to leave the airport. She will be taking her temperature twice a day for 21 days and calling it in to state health workers.
She supports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggestions for returning health care workers: They should visit a doctor who can approve them to return to daily life as long as they continue to monitor their temperature. She also warned against measures that would discourage health care workers from working in the Ebola zone.
"The way we will keep the American people safe is we will contribute to ending Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and we will mobilize the world to do the same," she said. "Anything that deters or discourages or stigmatizes workers who are part of that solution ... is something we want to avoid."
And she paid respect to the foreign health care workers who have come to help: "We are going out of the way to remind everybody ... of the heroism being exhibited by doctors and nurses who have traveled to these countries."
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Transcript
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Ebola has no greater friend than fear. It thrives on it. That tweet today from Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who's just back from a trip to West Africa. She visited all three countries where Ebola has been raging - Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. And Ambassador Power joins us from New York. Welcome back to the program.
SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you. Good to be here.
BLOCK: We just heard about some positive signs in Liberia - more diagnostic labs, more beds and clinics. I wonder what struck you as the clearest symbol of progress in your trip.
POWER: I think a Navy lab that I visited up-country, about a six or seven hour drive from Monrovia, where you have three Navy guys who had arrived just two weeks before, and they had cut the testing time for Ebola down from basically one week to between three and five hours. And then hearing from doctors in the area that cutting down that testing time means that Ebola-positive and Ebola-negative people who don't know of their status are not cohabitating then for that entire week.
And that means that people who don't have Ebola but who may have malaria or the flu or - are filtered away, and that then frees up more beds. And you could see the morale of everyone associated with the anti-Ebola effort increasing because the knowledge that there were beds - you know, I'll come forward and be a hygienist or a sanitation worker if I know there might be a place for me in case the protocols get breached.
BLOCK: Yeah, so those are some bright spots. What about on the flip side? What's the bad news?
POWER: Well, there just aren't enough beds yet out in the countryside. I think what we saw on our trip was really concentrated progress in both Freetown and in Monrovia by virtue, frankly, of the infusion of British and American command and control, logistic support, building capability, aviation, you know, the ability to move around the country, and the development of command and control centers in each of the two capitals that were fanning out instructions as to what to do on burial in Freetown or on burial in Monrovia. Those structures and those capabilities have to be replicated out at the district level or the county level so that burial teams are quick to respond to calls, so that there are cellphones even to make calls when somebody dies of something suspected to be Ebola.
So I think in a way, it's misleading to see the progress in the capital and think that it extends everywhere. On the other hand, it shows you what can be scaled if you have the resources, if you have the international health workers, if you have the helicopters to get out to those more distant areas.
BLOCK: And just to be clear, you weren't going to clinics yourself where patients were being treated? You weren't exposed to Ebola patients?
POWER: We were not exposed to Ebola patients.
BLOCK: Now that you're back, what protective measures are you taking?
POWER: Well, I'm actively monitoring, which means that even though I wasn't exposed to anybody with Ebola, I just take my temperature twice a day for 21 days and call it in. And so the state health workers will keep track of my case in that manner. I'm in the very low-risk category.
BLOCK: At the same time, we're hearing about U.S. military personnel who've left these West African countries, and they're being effectively quarantined in Italy for three weeks even though they also had no contact with Ebola patients - a stricter policy than what the CDC recommends. Is that sending the wrong message?
POWER: Look, I think we're all low-risk. Again, our military forces will be performing roles like building roads and unloading materials from flights that come in. But as you know, the military tend to live in barracks and operate as groups together. And doing individualized screening on 1,000, 2,000, maybe 3,000 troops who come home would be very labor-intensive. So I think all things considered, this just seemed a prudent course. And, of course, their families will welcome them back as soon as they can.
BLOCK: So you think that makes sense?
POWER: I think that every institution is doing the cost-benefit and figuring out how to integrate people, how to attract people to the cause. And it's a balancing act. And we need to, on the one hand, address the fears that communities have here in the United States - I mean, many people are hearing about, learning about Ebola for the first time - but without doing anything that will interfere with the best way to protect the American people, which is to tackle the problem at its source.
Anything that deters or discourages or stigmatizes workers who are part of that solution that not only rescues these countries in their hour of greatest need but also keeps us safe in the medium and long-term, is something we want to avoid.
BLOCK: Well, Ambassador Power, thanks for talking with us today.
POWER: Thank you for having me.
BLOCK: That's Samantha Power. She's the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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