1 00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:10,360 This programme contains scenes some viewers may find upsetting from the start. 2 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:12,800 Monrovia, September 2014. 3 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:15,560 A suspected Ebola victim has escaped from hospital. 4 00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:21,120 I got a call saying that there's a walker on his way down to market. 5 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:25,800 I hear and see the crowd of people screaming and shouting. 6 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:31,880 The crowd wants to kill him, but they're too scared to come close. 7 00:00:31,880 --> 00:00:35,680 The guys in the suits wrestle him to the ground and lift him 8 00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:37,760 into the back of the pick-up. 9 00:00:39,480 --> 00:00:42,440 It was like watching a zombie movie. 10 00:00:42,440 --> 00:00:45,280 It's just crazy, it's pure craziness. 11 00:00:46,720 --> 00:00:51,080 "Where am I? How did I end up here? Was this just a bad dream?" 12 00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:57,080 No, it wasn't. It was for real. 13 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:01,760 This is the inside story of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. 14 00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:05,600 I start to wonder, "Maybe this is the end of the world. 15 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:08,040 "Maybe everybody's going to die." 16 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:12,160 I was afraid it would just be, like, this black plague with this 17 00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:15,360 inexorable spread across the continent and beyond. 18 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:21,040 It's the story of how Ebola spread while the world wasn't looking. 19 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:24,280 We felt that our whole country was going to be destroyed. 20 00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:27,560 We didn't know how many people would die. 21 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:30,720 The story of an avoidable tragedy... 22 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:35,680 We said it over and over - "Action needs to happen now!" 23 00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:38,000 ..catastrophic complacency... 24 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,960 I cannot hide it. It was wrong. 25 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:44,800 ..and incompetence. 26 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:46,840 I was frankly furious. 27 00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:50,280 The basic stuff wasn't happening on the front lines. 28 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:53,360 And it's a warning to us all. 29 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:57,200 There are going to be more of these. No matter what we think, 30 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:01,800 Ebola was not an exception, Ebola is a precedent. 31 00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:05,040 Because, you know what? Everybody got it wrong on this one. 32 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:14,920 This is Ebola ground zero. 33 00:03:14,920 --> 00:03:20,200 In December 2013, the children of Meliandou village discovered 34 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:23,120 hundreds of bats nesting in a hollow tree. 35 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,800 Bats are thought to carry the deadly virus. 36 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:05,440 THUNDER CRACKS 37 00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:09,040 At the time, nobody knew what killed Emile Oumanou, 38 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:12,000 but he is now considered to be Patient Zero 39 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:16,280 of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. 40 00:05:16,280 --> 00:05:19,480 His sister died nine days later. 41 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:23,160 Then his mother fell ill - she was seven months pregnant. 42 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:18,800 Within days, more of Etienne's family fell sick and died. 43 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:22,880 The Ebola virus is transmitted by direct contact with blood 44 00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:24,720 and other bodily fluids. 45 00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:31,200 But the villagers had never heard of Ebola. 46 00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:48,480 A traditional healer gathered everyone together... 47 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:49,960 including the sick. 48 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:14,280 Emile's grandmother now fell sick. 49 00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:17,720 She travelled to a hospital in a nearby town. 50 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:23,320 Ebola was spreading, killing people across the forest region of Guinea. 51 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:25,960 But for three months, local health workers 52 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:28,880 thought it was cholera or malaria. 53 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,240 By March, the virus had travelled hundreds of miles 54 00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:40,480 and killed more than 50 people. 55 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:45,040 The government sent a team of scientists to investigate 56 00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:46,560 and take blood samples. 57 00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:16,880 The doctor tracked down a teenager called Khalil who was sick 58 00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:19,080 with the mystery disease. 59 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:21,520 His colleague started filming on an iPad. 60 00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:26,920 Khalil's blood was tested and the scientists found a match - Ebola. 61 00:09:56,560 --> 00:10:01,240 Ebola was unknown in West Africa - every previous outbreak had 62 00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:03,160 happened thousands of miles away. 63 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:08,040 The government of Guinea - one of the poorest countries in the world - 64 00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:10,960 had no idea how to respond. 65 00:10:12,920 --> 00:10:16,280 But the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF, 66 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:19,320 has decades of experience with Ebola. 67 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:21,960 Within 48 hours, they set up a field hospital 68 00:10:21,960 --> 00:10:26,520 in the town of Gueckedou, the epicentre of the outbreak. 69 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:29,080 The first patients began to arrive. 70 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:35,160 Most of those cases came from different villages 71 00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:38,000 or different areas in the city of Gueckedou. 72 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:41,240 That's a very bad sign, because it means that you don't have just one 73 00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:44,160 cluster or one family or one village that is hit, 74 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:46,160 it means that it's already spread out. 75 00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:51,840 Past outbreaks had shown that the key to stopping Ebola is to 76 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:56,200 isolate the sick, monitor anyone who had contact with the infected, 77 00:10:56,200 --> 00:10:59,040 and safely bury the dead. 78 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:02,960 This complex operation now needed a level of manpower 79 00:11:02,960 --> 00:11:07,400 and coordination far beyond the resources of MSF. 80 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:10,320 And I remember my headquarters asked me, like, "What do you think? 81 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:13,760 "Is it five villages, ten villages, 15 villages, or more?" 82 00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:17,000 I remember I said, "If I have to choose between those three options, 83 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:20,040 "I do believe it's 15 or more." 84 00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:23,120 Then I said, like, "I think we have a big problem." 85 00:11:26,560 --> 00:11:31,240 The World Health Organization, the WHO, has a remit to help 86 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:34,600 governments coordinate the response to deadly outbreaks. 87 00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:39,040 We deal with and hear about literally 88 00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:42,560 hundreds of outbreaks during the year, so this is one of many 89 00:11:42,560 --> 00:11:45,480 reports at that time that there's something going on. 90 00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:50,600 Here is a disease that we have dealt with for a number of decades before 91 00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:54,400 and in our own mind, we had the idea that Ebola 92 00:11:54,400 --> 00:11:56,400 was something which was severe 93 00:11:56,400 --> 00:12:01,200 but typically occurred in a certain way and then could be handled, 94 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:05,440 when we didn't really know how, how complex it was going to become. 95 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:12,480 The WHO left the response in the hands of its local officials 96 00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:17,120 in Guinea, who had no experience of Ebola. 97 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:19,800 They set up what would become daily meetings with 98 00:12:19,800 --> 00:12:24,840 the government of Guinea, MSF and other aid organisations. 99 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:28,920 Those daily meetings were a nightmare. 100 00:12:28,920 --> 00:12:31,680 Every day, every day, day after day - 101 00:12:31,680 --> 00:12:34,800 disorganised meeting, no decision taken, 102 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:37,760 no-one knowing what they were talking about. 103 00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:43,120 WHO people were really not at the level required for the job. 104 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:48,400 Their coordinator never worked on Ebola before and WHO was 105 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:53,080 really downsizing the scale of the epidemic and were contradicting 106 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:55,520 our own statements. 107 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,160 Immediately, I thought, "Those people are useless. 108 00:12:58,160 --> 00:13:01,600 "They don't even understand what they are supposed to do here." 109 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:05,800 From the start, there was a fatal confusion about who was in charge. 110 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:13,000 WHO, although it's a very important technical agency, our powers 111 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,880 are limited when we are operating in countries. 112 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:17,520 The countries take the lead, 113 00:13:17,520 --> 00:13:22,120 we advise honestly and this is what we tried to do in Guinea. 114 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:28,400 MSF's greatest fear was that the virus 115 00:13:28,400 --> 00:13:30,440 would enter a crowded African city. 116 00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:39,320 And in the face of the chaotic response, that's just what happened. 117 00:13:42,760 --> 00:13:46,000 Ebola hit the capital of Guinea - Conakry. 118 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:52,440 MSF decided to sound the alarm. 119 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:08,440 The government of Guinea was furious with MSF for going public 120 00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:10,480 with their concerns. 121 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:14,320 The last thing they wanted was an Ebola panic causing foreign 122 00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:16,360 companies to pull out of the country. 123 00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:11,320 The government now tried to hide the true extent of the outbreak. 124 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:19,360 The Ministry of Health sent a memo to its teams in the field, 125 00:15:19,360 --> 00:15:23,520 ordering them only to count laboratory-confirmed cases of Ebola 126 00:15:23,520 --> 00:15:27,960 when, in reality, many people were dying before they could be tested. 127 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:07,920 The Ministry of Health in Guinea 128 00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:12,040 ignored many deaths that were probable Ebola cases. 129 00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:14,560 Some of these deaths were in the villages 130 00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:17,360 along the international border with Sierra Leone. 131 00:16:19,120 --> 00:16:22,920 Luisey Kamano lived in neighbouring Sierra Leone 132 00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:26,360 but had family in Guinea and came there when her mother fell ill. 133 00:16:44,880 --> 00:16:47,000 When Luisey fell sick, 134 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:51,040 she was frightened by rumours that foreign doctors were killing people. 135 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:16,400 Ill and frightened, Luisey decided to head home. 136 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:19,800 She walked through the bush, until she reached a river. 137 00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:24,680 It was the border with Sierra Leone. 138 00:17:24,680 --> 00:17:27,920 There were no checkpoints, no immigration police. 139 00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:40,920 On the other side of the border, 140 00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:44,080 Luisey hired a motorbike taxi to take her to her village. 141 00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:50,280 No-one knew it yet, but Ebola had arrived in Sierra Leone. 142 00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:00,240 THUNDER RUMBLES 143 00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:10,360 What happened next was a tragic missed opportunity to save lives. 144 00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:16,160 The WHO were tipped off that Luisey was sick 145 00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:17,680 and had crossed the border. 146 00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:24,680 Luisey's name and location were logged in an internal report 147 00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:27,640 and passed on to the Sierra Leone government. 148 00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:33,920 We did bring Luisey to the attention of the Sierra Leone government 149 00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:36,560 and they came back and told us that 150 00:18:36,560 --> 00:18:40,040 Luisey had gone back to Guinea 151 00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:44,280 and that she was not in Sierra Leone. 152 00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:47,440 That was the last that we heard of this particular case. 153 00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:55,240 The Sierra Leone government denies it was ever informed about Luisey. 154 00:18:55,240 --> 00:18:57,080 The opportunity was missed 155 00:18:57,080 --> 00:19:00,840 and the disease was soon spreading through her village. 156 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:06,160 The death of one particular victim was about to take the outbreak 157 00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:07,640 to another level. 158 00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:13,360 Mendinor was a renowned healer. 159 00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:15,440 She soon succumbed to the virus 160 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:19,040 and her body was prepared for burial. 161 00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:22,920 The corpse of an Ebola victim is highly infectious, 162 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:27,880 but in West Africa, funerals involve the ritual washing of the body. 163 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:56,640 Burial practices played a major role in the spread of the virus. 164 00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:59,840 Mourners often touch the body at the funeral itself. 165 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:05,400 The villagers feared that if they didn't bury Mendinor properly, 166 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:06,880 there would be consequences. 167 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:21,480 Mendinor was a local celebrity and hundreds came to her funeral. 168 00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:23,080 It was a catastrophe. 169 00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:28,920 Scientists were later to call it a "super-spreader" event, 170 00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:33,160 and ultimately linked hundreds of deaths back to Mendinor's burial. 171 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,320 The outbreak was already raging in Guinea, 172 00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:39,760 and now it began to spread unchecked through 173 00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:44,760 the villages of Sierra Leone, wiping out entire families. 174 00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:50,000 The healer's niece even carried the virus 300 miles to Monrovia - 175 00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,080 the capital of neighbouring Liberia. 176 00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:57,560 Nobody knew it, but the outbreak was now completely out of control. 177 00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,800 For more than a month, the government of Sierra Leone 178 00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:11,760 missed the deaths in its border villages. 179 00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:14,400 MSF tried to get them to investigate, 180 00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:16,840 but the government did little. 181 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:23,960 They had turned for advice to an American company called Metabiota, 182 00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:26,840 who had a long-standing presence in the country 183 00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:29,240 researching tropical diseases. 184 00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:34,120 But Metabiota had no experience in controlling Ebola epidemics. 185 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:41,800 I said, "This outbreak will not last more than a few weeks." 186 00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:45,160 That was after we identified the first week. 187 00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:49,520 The first two weeks, we said, "OK, that's a normal outbreak, 188 00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:52,120 "we are confident it will be over in two months." 189 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:02,040 What can I say? 190 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:06,000 Yes, it was Ebola but the magnitude had not hit us, 191 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:12,280 so we took steps at that time, that we were advised by Metabiota, 192 00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:15,520 but we never knew that it was going to be so big. 193 00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:23,760 The government then made a decision that would cost many lives. 194 00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:29,120 They decided to treat Ebola victims at the state hospital 195 00:22:29,120 --> 00:22:31,800 in the town of Kenema, which already had a ward 196 00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:36,880 for Lassa fever - a disease similar to Ebola but less infectious. 197 00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,760 The director of the clinic, Dr Sheik Humarr Khan, was a world 198 00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,800 expert in Lassa fever and one of Sierra Leone's top medics. 199 00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:05,720 But within days, his hospital was overrun with Ebola victims. 200 00:23:07,360 --> 00:23:10,800 They infected other patients, then the nurses started to die. 201 00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:19,840 If you go to the morgue, you see dead bodies, 202 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:24,320 15, 16, 17, 18 dead bodies, all in body bags. 203 00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:28,480 Then I start to wonder, "What is happening? 204 00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:31,400 "Maybe this is the end of the world. 205 00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:34,200 "Maybe everybody's going to die." 206 00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,360 Far from containing the outbreak, 207 00:23:36,360 --> 00:23:39,040 the hospital was helping to spread it. 208 00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,080 Will Pooley, a British nurse, 209 00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:43,920 volunteered to work on the Ebola ward. 210 00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,160 He was shocked by what he found. 211 00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:51,040 When a patient arrived, they'd walk in past these corpses 212 00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:55,280 that would be piling up across the path and sometimes next to the path. 213 00:23:55,280 --> 00:23:58,640 They were smelling quite bad until the burial team came - 214 00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:00,880 and it might take days. 215 00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:05,040 I was constantly gobsmacked that this wasn't a bigger deal. 216 00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:06,880 Like, people weren't... 217 00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:09,600 You know, that this wasn't being shouted about. 218 00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:13,160 The government called in MSF. 219 00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:17,840 The plan was to build a specialist Ebola clinic 220 00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:19,520 in the neighbouring district. 221 00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:25,840 MSF officials say that the government's advisers, Metabiota, 222 00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:29,120 were still underestimating the scale of the problem. 223 00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,360 Do you think Metabiota was the right organisation 224 00:24:53,360 --> 00:24:56,240 to be doing outbreak response? 225 00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,680 No, we are not specialised in outbreak response. 226 00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:03,120 We know how to do it because we have some kind of expertise 227 00:25:03,120 --> 00:25:08,240 in the domain, but we are too small. I mean, we are a very small company. 228 00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,960 The truth was that nobody knew how bad things were 229 00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:21,360 because Metabiota and the government had no working system to investigate 230 00:25:21,360 --> 00:25:24,600 who Ebola victims had been in contact with. 231 00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,760 This lack of what's called "contact tracing" 232 00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,560 meant that hundreds of cases went undetected. 233 00:25:43,360 --> 00:25:48,240 A month is a disaster. It is a disaster, yes. We wasted time. 234 00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:01,240 It was wrong. 235 00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:03,640 Yeah. 236 00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:15,240 By June, seven months after Patient Zero, the outbreak covered 237 00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,880 three countries - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. 238 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:24,000 Four neighbouring countries were at risk of imminent infection. 239 00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:30,480 It was now the biggest Ebola outbreak the world had ever seen, 240 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:34,920 but the WHO decided not to declare an international emergency. 241 00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:40,120 At that time, I think all of us thought, 242 00:26:40,120 --> 00:26:43,280 "Wait a minute, let's be cautious. 243 00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,240 "Let's see how it evolves. We are deploying people in the field, 244 00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,360 "we think we are making headways." 245 00:26:48,360 --> 00:26:53,040 But, with hindsight, if I went back to June 2014, 246 00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:56,480 I would probably be saying something entirely different, I'd probably be 247 00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:00,960 standing up and calling my Director General and saying, "Please, do it." 248 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,800 While the virus raged out of control, 249 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,560 the WHO opened a new outbreak coordination office in West Africa. 250 00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:12,920 But they did little to address the shortage of medics and hospitals. 251 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,480 'There was absolutely no change at field level. 252 00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:20,000 'Still the very same few organisations on the ground 253 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:21,440 'doing the work. 254 00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,320 'No additional people coming to support. 255 00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:29,000 'More people at coordination level, more meetings to be organised. 256 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,280 But on the ground, on the field, impact, zero. 257 00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:45,440 Back at Kenema Hospital in Sierra Leone, 258 00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:47,480 the staff desperately needed help. 259 00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,960 The WHO had sent two doctors to help with the caseload. 260 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:57,560 But the locals had had almost no training in infection control. 261 00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,920 The nurses began filming the shocking conditions. 262 00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:07,440 One morning, a sick teenager turned up at the clinic. 263 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:11,760 The footage shows how little protection the nurses had. 264 00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:18,040 This boy was hiccupping - it's classic signs and symptoms. 265 00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:20,760 His mouth was bleeding, blood - 266 00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,000 you can see blood from his lips, all over. 267 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:27,360 You can see his eyes, red eyes, hiccupping, hiccupping. 268 00:28:27,360 --> 00:28:32,040 I would say, "Oh, my God, we are really exposing ourselves," 269 00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,200 because if you see that patient, he was standing very close to me 270 00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,240 and other people were very close by the patients. 271 00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,280 They are not in protective PPE. 272 00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,120 Then the man I call, I say, "Come and take this patient." 273 00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,600 The only dress that... It basically was disposable gown. 274 00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:51,280 And you see him grabbing this patient... Oh, my God! 275 00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,120 You'd have to be crazy to think that anything 276 00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:00,200 but shutting that place down would be the thing to do, 277 00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:04,000 and everyone knew that's what needed to happen, and that should have 278 00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:08,120 happened months before that. And had that have happened, there's a whole 279 00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:13,400 cohort of nurses, lab techs and cleaners that wouldn't have died. 280 00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:15,640 So many lives would've been saved. 281 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,360 Dr Khan, the director of the hospital, 282 00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,400 had been working long days in the high risk zone for weeks. 283 00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,320 Now he called the nurses together to try to teach them 284 00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:34,920 how to avoid infection. 285 00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,480 'In that meeting, Dr Khan was telling the health workers,' 286 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:04,160 "This is a national sacrifice and it's everybody's responsibility." 287 00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:06,600 And he was even saying that, "Look at me - 288 00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:11,160 "this is the way I look like before, look at me now." 289 00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,120 He was just encouraging the nurses. 290 00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:17,960 Nobody knew it yet 291 00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:21,320 but the doctor himself was already infected. 292 00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,000 Three days later, Dr Khan developed a fever 293 00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:25,920 and tested positive for Ebola. 294 00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:27,920 SCREAMING AND SHOUTING 295 00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,000 Panic now spread through the town, 296 00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:36,080 along with wild rumours that the hospital staff were murdering people. 297 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:39,920 This crazy woman came out 298 00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:45,200 and stood right at the centre of the town in the marketplace 299 00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,600 and started shouting, "There is no Ebola!" 300 00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,880 This woman was shouting, "I am a nurse, 301 00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,240 "I am telling you people that we are just cannibal, doing cannibalism, 302 00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:10,240 "we are the one that are killing people, we are removing their parts." 303 00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:14,640 SHOUTING 304 00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,760 And everybody in the marketplace was wild, 305 00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:25,200 running, "Oh, there is no Ebola! 306 00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,680 "A nurse is confessing that there is no Ebola, 307 00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,720 "come and see the nurse, come and see, a nurse is confessing." 308 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:36,400 Now, everybody started throwing stones at us. 309 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,400 They said we are going to the hospital, 310 00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:42,040 we are going to burn the Kenema Government Hospital down 311 00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,520 so some of the nurses, cos they run for their lives... 312 00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:49,840 I was walking up to the unit 313 00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:53,120 and there was this stream of nurses and lab techs walking 314 00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,080 at a very hurried pace, past me in the other direction. 315 00:31:56,080 --> 00:32:02,240 I could hear this mob, an angry mob, it's a really unique sound, 316 00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,560 and the WHO, they all evacuated. 317 00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:08,720 They got in to their cars and drove off, 318 00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:13,240 leaving just a handful of people inside the whole hospital really, 319 00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,800 when there was a risk of the hospital being overrun. 320 00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:18,840 SHOUTING 321 00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,640 The police used teargas to disperse the crowd. 322 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:26,600 EXPLOSION 323 00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,400 The streets went quiet for now 324 00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,840 but Sierra Leone was on a knife edge. 325 00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,120 CRYING 326 00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,040 Four days later, Dr Khan died. 327 00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,720 It was a massive blow to the country. 328 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,200 He was a hero, the figurehead. 329 00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:00,480 Until then, I'd been a bit worried - 330 00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:04,560 at that point, I really sat down and thought about my chances 331 00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,800 but leaving wasn't really an option any more 332 00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:09,640 because of how bad the situation was 333 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,880 so for me to turn around and just run away at that point, 334 00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:16,320 just, that's not, it wouldn't have been possible. 335 00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:20,160 Three weeks later, Will Pooley fell ill. 336 00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,240 CLOCK CHIMES 337 00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:26,880 'A British man who's contracted the Ebola virus is being flown tonight by RAF jet 338 00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,720 'to an isolation unit at a hospital in London... 339 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:31,960 'The moment Ebola arrived in Britain... 340 00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,480 'Getting word in from the CDC - it's confirmed the first Ebola case... 341 00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,960 'Two infected missionaries, flown from Liberia and in isolation 342 00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:40,280 'at an Atlanta hospital...' 343 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,720 At last, eight months in to the outbreak, 344 00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,160 the world was finally waking up to the unfolding disaster. 345 00:33:55,920 --> 00:34:00,880 The outbreak had now killed more than 800 people in three countries - 346 00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,640 yet there was still no major international response. 347 00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:10,360 MSF had been urging the WHO to declare an international emergency. 348 00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:21,000 I said that, "I've been telling the world for the last few months 349 00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:24,160 "that it's an unprecedented out of control Ebola epidemic. 350 00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:28,600 "I don't have the authority, people don't listen to me 351 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:33,120 "but YOU, you need to step up to the plate and declare it 352 00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:37,360 "because you have the authority and you have the legitimacy." 353 00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:44,760 It was what the virus did next that finally forced the WHO to act. 354 00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:48,480 An infected Liberian travelled to Nigeria - 355 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,760 Africa's most populous country. 356 00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:52,880 The outbreak there was contained 357 00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,840 but the episode shocked the WHO in to action. 358 00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:01,360 I am declaring the current outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease 359 00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:05,200 a public health emergency of international concern. 360 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:11,000 The committee acknowledges the serious and unusual nature 361 00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:16,160 of the outbreak and the potential for further international spread. 362 00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,240 The WHO put a high-level team of experts in Geneva 363 00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:23,760 in charge of the response. 364 00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:25,600 They faced a daunting task. 365 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,360 We were looking at one of the most dangerous pathogens that we knew 366 00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:37,080 growing at an exponential rate across a broad geographic area, 367 00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,920 something we had never seen before. 368 00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:41,640 We needed clinical management, 369 00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,720 people to go in there and manage the Ebola cases. 370 00:35:44,720 --> 00:35:46,840 We needed public health expertise on the ground 371 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:48,920 to be able to do the contact tracing 372 00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:53,760 and I realised that capacity to manage something on this scale doesn't exist. 373 00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:57,800 The WHO now had a plan 374 00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,240 but nobody to carry it out. 375 00:36:00,240 --> 00:36:02,400 They needed to convince wealthy governments 376 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,440 to provide money and manpower 377 00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,560 and time was against them 378 00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:09,800 because the outbreak was about to enter 379 00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:11,920 its most shocking and deadly phase. 380 00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:22,800 West Point - 381 00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:27,440 the most densely populated district of Monrovia, capital of Liberia. 382 00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:35,360 75,000 people live in less than a square mile. 383 00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,280 There's no running water or sanitation - 384 00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:43,920 perfect conditions for the spread of Ebola. 385 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,640 The first deaths were in the home of Finda Fallah. 386 00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,440 SHE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE 387 00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:51,360 I was called by the Minister of Health 388 00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:54,200 to say that people were dying. 389 00:37:54,200 --> 00:38:00,880 Total, total confusion, chaos, disbelief, fear, 390 00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:02,960 no means to respond 391 00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:07,680 because we didn't have the knowledge, we didn't have the equipment, 392 00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:11,240 we didn't have the means whereby we could attend to people... 393 00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:20,480 We did not have full awareness of how quickly this disease could spread, 394 00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:23,240 how deadly this disease was. We were confounded 395 00:38:23,240 --> 00:38:29,120 because it just spread so rapidly in these communities. 396 00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,040 Monrovia had one small Ebola clinic 397 00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,320 and it was soon full. 398 00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,520 Desperate patients had nowhere to go. 399 00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,760 By now, MSF were over-stretched. 400 00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,080 They were struggling to construct a new 400-bed clinic. 401 00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:54,120 In the meantime, the government response was crude and brutal. 402 00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,680 Anyone suspected of having Ebola 403 00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,720 was simply dumped in a makeshift isolation centre, 404 00:39:06,720 --> 00:39:08,880 an empty school in the West Point slum. 405 00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,720 Finda, whose husband had just died, 406 00:39:16,720 --> 00:39:19,720 was forced to come here with her six children - 407 00:39:19,720 --> 00:39:22,160 even though none of them appeared to be sick. 408 00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:41,200 The centre had no doctors 409 00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,280 and no separation between the sick and the healthy. 410 00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:49,800 Very quickly, it was completely contaminated. 411 00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,200 Finda's son Sasko fell sick. 412 00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,360 Outside, West Point was growing tense. 413 00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:32,320 The government was shipping patients from all over the city 414 00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:34,280 into the isolation centre. 415 00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:40,360 The slum was becoming the dumping ground for all of Monrovia's Ebola victims 416 00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:44,520 and once again, rumours were spreading that Ebola was a hoax - 417 00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:48,400 a conspiracy to kill poor Africans. 418 00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:50,600 Just four days after it opened, 419 00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,160 protesters stormed the holding centre. 420 00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:55,160 SHOUTING 421 00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:43,160 People looted mattresses and sheets contaminated with the virus 422 00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,960 and the Ebola victims disappeared back into the slum. 423 00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,920 West Point was now out of control. 424 00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:17,960 'Fellow citizens, 425 00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:23,920 'it has become necessary to impose additional sanctions. 426 00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,200 'The communities of West Point in Monrovia' 427 00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:31,640 are quarantined on a full security watch. 428 00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:36,360 This means there will be no movement in and out of those areas. 429 00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:44,680 We ordered the military to quarantine the place, 430 00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,720 to stop anybody from leaving. 431 00:42:47,720 --> 00:42:51,120 Our fear was people would run away and come from there 432 00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,200 and then go into other communities, that's why we did that. 433 00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:03,960 GUNFIRE 434 00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,000 As panic and anger swept through the slum, 435 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,920 the army opened fire with live ammunition. 436 00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:15,560 A 14-year-old boy was shot and later died. 437 00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:17,560 ANGRY SHOUTING AND CRYING 438 00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,520 The use of soldiers was a mistake. 439 00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:29,760 The whole military approach was really ill thought out. 440 00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:34,240 The picture of this young man with his leg shattered 441 00:43:34,240 --> 00:43:38,480 was placed in to everybody's consciousness. 442 00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:39,720 At that point, 443 00:43:39,720 --> 00:43:42,760 some of the young people were calling for anybody to do anything, 444 00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:45,200 calling them to rebel. 445 00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:48,000 At this stage, I think we felt 446 00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:51,200 that our whole country was going to be destroyed. 447 00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,160 The military cordon didn't work - 448 00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,400 Ebola was already all over the city 449 00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:00,440 and inside the West Point slum, 450 00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:03,480 the sick had nowhere to go except the streets 451 00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:05,720 so the virus spread more quickly. 452 00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,560 A local film-maker who found a way past the cordon 453 00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:16,160 discovered Finda and her children homeless and sick with Ebola. 454 00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:19,360 By now, her son Sasko was dead. 455 00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,160 The rest of the children desperately needed help. 456 00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:09,920 As West Point descended into hopelessness and despair, 457 00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,360 MSF had been frantically constructing ELWA 3, 458 00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:17,200 the biggest Ebola hospital ever built 459 00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:18,960 but when it opened, 460 00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:20,880 it was clear it would not be enough. 461 00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:28,680 Brett Adamson was MSF's field coordinator. 462 00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:32,840 People were dying outside, 463 00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:37,000 families were dying in taxi cabs outside, 464 00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,560 they were arriving seeking care, the families had nowhere else to go, 465 00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:45,440 the centre was full and essentially they were, 466 00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:50,120 the centre was waiting for someone to die to then make space. 467 00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:56,440 Stefan Liljegren was recruited at short notice to work at the hospital. 468 00:45:56,440 --> 00:46:00,520 Like many of the team, he had no Ebola experience. 469 00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,360 I arrive and there are mattresses just next to each other, 470 00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,680 full of people, and they're dead. 471 00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,600 And I look back at them 472 00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:10,440 and, "OK, so that's how a dead person look like." 473 00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:16,520 They're telling me that, "Stefan, we can't just watch, 474 00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:19,160 "we need to go in and move bodies. 475 00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,200 "Are you ready for it?" 476 00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:25,480 And I start to panic and my pulse goes very high. 477 00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:27,520 There are dead bodies in there. 478 00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:29,760 And in gruesome...positions. 479 00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:38,480 We go to the next one and there are dead bodies in there as well. 480 00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:40,720 And we go up to a man in a chair... 481 00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:43,760 The guy with the spray goes up 482 00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,000 and he starts spraying his face and that's when it really hits you, 483 00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:50,480 "Yeah, he is really dead," and we place out the body bag 484 00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:54,280 and zip him up and then we carry him away. 485 00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:58,160 And family are crying and screaming and yelling 486 00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:00,800 and...many are in panic. 487 00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,680 That was my first day with Ebola. 488 00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:06,680 BREATHING THROUGH MASK 489 00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,840 A normal medical round for me would be going in, 490 00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,680 pronouncing five or six people dead, 491 00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:19,760 and it's extremely horrible, because people are dying 492 00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:24,560 sometimes, er...very distressing deaths, beside a child. 493 00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:27,240 The mother that was trying to care for her child, dead, 494 00:47:27,240 --> 00:47:30,160 and then you've got a baby, and trying to work out 495 00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:34,960 how on earth are you going to try and deal with an unaccompanied child 496 00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,560 in an overfull centre. 497 00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:39,400 It was...really hard. 498 00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,360 It was just so far beyond 499 00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:49,920 what could normally be expected of humanitarian workers, I would say. 500 00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:59,400 The pointlessness of it, that's what it felt like. 501 00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,360 You know, normally if you work to the point of exhaustion 502 00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:06,440 you can come away from something and feel...a degree of satisfaction, 503 00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,840 knowing that you did what you could. 504 00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,520 I didn't feel any satisfaction at all. 505 00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:17,240 The shame of having to turn away an Ebola patient, 506 00:48:17,240 --> 00:48:21,240 there's no greater example of a failure of a response 507 00:48:21,240 --> 00:48:23,160 when that happens. 508 00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,120 It was never about feeling like 509 00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:27,760 you'd failed in the level of medical acuity. 510 00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:29,800 We did everything we could. 511 00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,880 It was about feeling the shame of what the world 512 00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:37,080 had to offer for Liberia at that time 513 00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:39,920 and, yeah, the sheer number of... death. 514 00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:43,160 It was just really seeing death. 515 00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:44,600 Yeah. 516 00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:50,080 After sleeping on the streets for five days, 517 00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:51,880 Finda and her surviving children 518 00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:56,520 were finally picked up by an ambulance crew in West Point. 519 00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:00,560 BLAST OF SIREN 520 00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:02,800 They were taken to the new MSF clinic. 521 00:49:04,720 --> 00:49:07,760 But when they arrived there was no room for them. 522 00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:27,760 It's just crazy. 523 00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:30,400 To stand there and look in the face of people 524 00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:33,880 and tell them that there is no space. 525 00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:36,800 It's...surreal, really surreal. 526 00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:41,680 If you had to make a choice, who do you take? 527 00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:44,320 "If I have to take someone, 528 00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:47,360 "I have to take this woman that lies on the ground here, 529 00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:48,960 "she is very, very sick, 530 00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:51,040 "and if I have to take someone I have to take her. 531 00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:52,760 "I can't take you. 532 00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:55,920 "There is no space for you here today." 533 00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:59,400 Eventually, the MSF team found room for Finda and the children. 534 00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,880 But by now Finda's youngest boy, Tamba, was slipping away. 535 00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,760 Ebola killed most of Finda's family. 536 00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:41,840 Three of her children died, 537 00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:45,480 as did her husband, her mother and her sister. 538 00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,760 Finda herself, and three of her children, survived 539 00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:52,600 and returned to West Point. 540 00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:03,880 MSF were now at breaking point. 541 00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:07,960 Their treatment centre was dangerously full. 542 00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,240 The organisation made a direct plea to the United States 543 00:51:16,240 --> 00:51:20,400 to provide thousands of soldiers to help isolate and treat patients. 544 00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,280 The director of the US Centers for Disease Control 545 00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:30,880 and Prevention came to Monrovia to see the situation for himself. 546 00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:35,320 I still get goose bumps thinking about it 547 00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:38,080 and I will never forget the experience. 548 00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:40,720 I've worked all over the world for decades in public health, 549 00:51:40,720 --> 00:51:44,160 I've seen starvation, I've seen epidemics, 550 00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:50,040 but in ELWA 3 I saw a level of devastation that I have never seen, 551 00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:54,360 where you had people dying in a healthcare facility 552 00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:56,560 and not enough people to remove the dead. 553 00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:01,000 I went into one of the tents 554 00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,280 and there was a woman lying on the ground. 555 00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:06,320 Er, she had beautifully plaited hair. 556 00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:10,800 When I looked more closely I realised that she was dead 557 00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:13,840 and the staff were too busy trying to care for the living 558 00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,000 to even remove her. 559 00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:20,960 It was driving around Monrovia and seeing dead bodies on the street, 560 00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:24,360 it was seeing a country essentially in freefall, 561 00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:28,840 and knowing, knowing with certainty, that no matter what we did 562 00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:32,080 it was going to get a lot worse before it got better. 563 00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:36,680 Tom Frieden called President Obama. 564 00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:38,800 I was frankly furious. 565 00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,080 What I said was that this isn't about 566 00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:43,080 response in the next three months, 567 00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:46,240 it's response in the next three DAYS that matters. 568 00:52:46,240 --> 00:52:48,240 Cases were increasing exponentially, 569 00:52:48,240 --> 00:52:50,920 they were doubling every three weeks. 570 00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:54,480 Each month of delay would result in a TRIPLING of cases. 571 00:52:56,680 --> 00:53:00,960 The world still has an opportunity to save countless lives. 572 00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:05,800 Right now the world has a responsibility to act, 573 00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:08,280 to step up and to do more. 574 00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:14,360 Ten months after the outbreak began, the fightback was underway. 575 00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:20,240 The United States sent in thousands of troops and medics, 576 00:53:20,240 --> 00:53:23,080 and the UK and other countries followed suit. 577 00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:29,800 The UN created a new emergency mission to coordinate the response. 578 00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:35,680 Work began building new treatment centres and training burial teams. 579 00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,360 But the virus was still running ahead of the medics. 580 00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:43,840 In an age of cheap international travel, 581 00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:47,280 the disease threatened to spread beyond Africa. 582 00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:50,280 Cases in Spain, Britain and America 583 00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:53,160 forced the disease into the headlines around the world. 584 00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:56,160 NEWSCASTER: A second healthcare worker in Dallas 585 00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:58,400 has tested positive for the Ebola virus. 586 00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:00,800 Public health officials confirm the first human to human 587 00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:03,800 transmission of Ebola in the US... 588 00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:08,800 'We definitely arrived too late, I mean, there's no doubt about that. 589 00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:12,760 'I was absolutely petrified, 590 00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,080 'I was scared to death.' 591 00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:17,680 I was afraid it would just be like this black plague 592 00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:22,600 with this inexorable spread across the continent and beyond. 593 00:54:22,600 --> 00:54:27,080 We were also deathly afraid that, oh, someone would get on a plane 594 00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:32,280 and go to Dakar or Jakarta or Johannesburg, somewhere, 595 00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,160 and land in an urban setting 596 00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,040 and Ebola get totally out of control. 597 00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:39,760 We didn't have a Plan B. 598 00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:50,440 Then, in Monrovia, something extraordinary happened. 599 00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:54,240 Cases began to drop sharply. 600 00:54:55,920 --> 00:55:00,280 When we saw the numbers starting to go down I was really worried. 601 00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:04,200 It was cause for more concern than jubilation because the response 602 00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:06,080 still seemed so inadequate 603 00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:09,320 that it was inconceivable that it could be successful 604 00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:12,800 and of course the fear is that, if people are not presenting, 605 00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:14,800 that they were staying at home, 606 00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:17,840 which means if they're staying at home they're infecting more people, 607 00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:23,000 that then the curve would bounce back in a much more dramatic way. 608 00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:24,960 And that was the fear. 609 00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:30,080 But the drop in numbers was real. 610 00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:31,880 With death all around them, 611 00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:35,960 millions of Liberians were changing how they lived their lives. 612 00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:38,400 They stopped trying to nurse their sick 613 00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:40,400 and began to bury their dead safely. 614 00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:46,400 The entire Monrovia knew Ebola was real, Ebola kills, 615 00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:49,960 Ebola's going to kill me unless I do one or two things differently. 616 00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:51,600 There was a huge fear 617 00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:54,240 and they changed their behaviours 618 00:55:54,240 --> 00:55:57,880 in ways which suddenly slowed down and took the heat out of this thing, 619 00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:01,000 because, remember, this virus can only go to person to person. 620 00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,800 And that's what turned it around, Liberians turned their country around. 621 00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:08,040 We got in there a little bit afterward and took a lot of credit. 622 00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:14,320 Thousands more were still to die across West Africa. 623 00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:17,040 But the changing behaviour of the population, 624 00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:22,120 and the massive international response, gradually turned the tide. 625 00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:26,720 Today, the battle against Ebola is still far from over. 626 00:56:26,720 --> 00:56:29,360 A quicker and better international response 627 00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:30,800 could have saved many lives. 628 00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:36,720 Officially, more than 10,000 people have died. 629 00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:41,320 The true figure is much higher. 630 00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:53,760 37 health workers died at the Kenema Government Hospital, here. 631 00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:58,440 37, including doctors, nurses, porters, 632 00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:01,880 cleaners, securities, lab technicians. 633 00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:05,880 37 of them died in this hospital. 634 00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:11,120 Nurse Rebecca, Alex Mogboi, Nancy Yoko, 635 00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:13,040 Sister Mbalu, 636 00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,680 Dr Khan, Nurse Alice... 637 00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:17,920 LIST OF NAMES FADES OUT 638 00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:20,960 Sometimes the world has got to learn things the hard way. 639 00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:22,800 There are going to be more of these. 640 00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:24,800 No matter what we think. 641 00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:28,880 Ebola was not an exception, Ebola is a precedent. 642 00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:01,200 More and more new diseases are emerging. 643 00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,840 We've seen pandemic flu, we've seen Sars, 644 00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:07,520 we've seen Ebola like this, so there will be more of these 645 00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:09,160 and we are not prepared. 646 00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:12,360 Cos you know what? Everybody got it wrong on this one.