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THE CITY THAT DOESNT TOUCH

PART ONE - OUTBREAK
When journalist Rachel Maher was working in West Africa during the recent outbreak of
the Ebola virus she was struck by the frightening parallels with Albert Camus novel The
Plague.
The city in Camus novel was under siege, just like the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia;
its citizens were coping with a long state of emergency, the deaths of national figures and
loved ones and isolation from the rest of the world.
Mixing oral history interviews with archives and the insights of Camus Rachel Maher tells
the story of this modern plague.
Australian nurse Brett Adamson, who treated victims of the virus in Liberia, reads from
The Plague. You hear an archival interview with him towards the end of the program.

Producer: Rachel Maher

Sound Engineer: Russell Stapleton
Executive Producer: Claudia Taranto

Earshot
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Music
The Plague: There have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet
plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared.
[FX background chatter, child crying]
Interview: When Ebola struck our country it didnt mean anything to us at that initial stage.
No one understood even what Ebola was or how indeed it would transfer from person to
person.
Archives: ...nearly forty years after first striking fear with a painful and grotesque set of
symptoms, the Ebola virus is back ...
Archives: ...in this courtyard tents have been set up to house victims of the Ebola epidemic.
Janice Cooper: And I remember being very confused about what exactly it was, how
contagious is it, how was this spread?
Rachel Maher: Ebola first appeared in the West African country of Guinea in the final days
of 2013. In the following months the virus spread, as people crossed jungle borders into
neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Many unknowingly infected others before dying. By
April a chain reaction had been sparked. By June Ebola had spread quickly. In the district of
Kenema 300 kilometres east of the capital Freetown patients soon filled an ageing isolation
ward built to treat far less contagious diseases. Health services collapsed. A respected
doctor, Sheik Umar Kahn led the response in Kenema.
Archives: In Sierra Leone the death of the countrys campaigning Ebola doctor was
especially hard to take ...
Rachel Maher: With Dr Kahns death everything changed.
Archives: ... Umar Kahn before testing positive and dying of a lethal virus.
Abdul Samba Brima: The entire district was like in a sombre mood. It was as if sometimes
strange is coming down from heaven, everybody was like anxiously glued to the radio and

when we entered Freetown everywhere people were clustered in twos or threes around
their radio sets just hearing the news about Dr Kahns death. It communicated this kind of
fear directly. You can imagine the shock, it gripped the entire country. Everybody was like,
wow this is a war.
The Plague: In barely a few days the number of fatal cases multiplied and it was clear to
those who were concerned with this curious illness that they were dealing with a real
epidemic. The authorities had not considered or planned anything at all but started by
holding a council meeting to discuss it.
Rachel Maher: Concern about Ebola in neighbouring Liberia was growing. Top health
officials, the government and existing international humanitarian agencies met to plan the
response but no one had any idea of the scale of the outbreak theyd soon be dealing with.
Liberian doctor Janice Cooper was at the meeting.
Janice Cooper: Even when we realised that we had an epidemic on our hands, there was still
not panic. I remember the first days of us meeting in a conference room at the Ministry of
Health and the panic really started growing when we realised that we had something that
was out of control and that there were not people here that were adequately prepared to
address it.
The Plague: Yes its almost impossible to believe but it appears that it must be the plague.
The word plague had just been spoken for the first time.
Archives: ...as the situation with Ebola grows more disconcerting. We now have some
economic ...
The Plague: No one yet had really accepted the idea of the disease. Most were chiefly
affected by whatever upset their habits or touched on their interests.
Archives: ... deteriorating public health situation ...
The Plague: These are not feelings with which to fight the plague.

Rachel Maher: Abdul Samba Brima is a journalist based in Freetown, Sierra Leones capital.
The city has better health facilities and access to information than the provinces. Still Sierra
Leone is one of the worlds poorest countries.
Abdul Samba Brima: For me I had a relative in Kenema. I actually come from that part of
the country. This cousin had actually contracted the virus. The family wanted me to host
this person. I had to resist, much to my own dissatisfaction. You know how it is when you
have a relative sick and the family depends on you for help. You cannot help because if you
help you are putting your life and your children and your familys life in danger as well.
Archives: Since February 2014 an outbreak of Ebola spread across West Africa from Guinea
to Sierra Leone ...
Archives: ... the worst Ebola outbreak in history but according to a doctor with a leading
medical organization in Liberia ...
Archives: ... this Ebola treatment centre paid for by rich tax payers ...
The Plague: It was obligatory for families to declare any case diagnosed by the doctor and
agree to isolation of their patients in special wards in the hospital.
Archives: Its hard to believe that just eight weeks ago this seven acre site was scrubland.
Now its a fully functioning treatment centre ...
The Plague: Sure enough in three days the two buildings were full.
Archives: ... potential Ebola victims will be taken through here ...
Archives: This means that many infected people are being left to die in their villages without
any medical care.
Archives: Its vital to separate out those people who are suspected of having the virus and
those who actually have it. Remember the symptoms of ...
Archives: A 60 bed capacity treatment unit is now being constructed but the health
department says it is not enough ...

The Plague: But for most of them it would be hospital and he knew what hospital meant for
the poor.
Archives: ... is that people wont report Ebola cases believing that an isolation ward is in
effect a death centre ...
Archives: Then their chances of recovery are improved dramatically.
Abdul Samba Brima: I wasnt only afraid but I saw death in reality because as my cousin
who contracted the virus in Kenema actually died in just a couple of days. And most of
those who attended to him actually contracted the virus and a few of them died. This was
the period when even when people were taken to treatment centres there was no
knowledge within and among medical people on how to attend to people who had
contracted the virus. As such most of those who visited the health centres as victims never
returned, they all died.
Rachel Maher: When Ebola reached Liberias capital Monrovia there were no facilities to
treat the virus. Medical staff and the public were unprepared. They had less than 100
doctors in a country of four million.
Archives: I was praying ...
Janice Cooper: As I came out I saw the clinician I talked about before standing there. It did
not occur to me for a minute that he might be there to be tested. And so we embraced and
he told me that he was feeling kind of tired and it felt like typhoid or it felt like malaria.
These are all symptoms that mimic EVD and so he had come to get tested. And I embraced
him and then he walked in and I sat where he was sitting and at that point the head of case
management came out and said, Youre sitting in a place where an Ebola suspect was just
sitting. I didnt panic at first. In fact I was more scared for him at the time, but I went
home and as I lay in bed, I thought about all the things that could happen to him and then
potentially could happen to me. The next day his wife called to tell me that he was indeed
EVD positive and I called to talk with him and we talked on the phone several times over the
next couple of days. And then the third day his wife called to tell me that he had expired.

The Plague: Houses of sick people were to be closed and disinfected, their relatives put in
preventative quarantine and burials organized by the authorities. It remains compulsory to
declare the disease and isolate patients.
Janice Cooper: It was another five days before the wife could get the house sprayed. The
next time the burial team went out there the community wouldnt let them in because they
believed that the formaldehyde and the disinfectants were causing the deaths. So there
was a lack of community knowledge and awareness. And as this played out for this
particular clinician, I started to get more and more calls like this.
Archives: In the war to control the Ebola outbreak in West Africa ...
Archives: So deadly is the virus that its being compared to war.
Archives: Doctors and health workers man the front lines.
The Plague: When war breaks out people say, It wont last, its too stupid, and war is
certainly too stupid, but that doesnt prevent it from lasting.
Rachel Maher: Both Sierra Leone and Liberia experienced civil wars in recent decades.
Adults in both countries have vivid memories of fleeing brutal violence and fear.
Abdul Samba Brima: It makes me remember of when I was a child and we had a war and
when we were inside a particular town or village, they started killing people and youd see
dead bodies all around. Everybody would be running helter skelter, running for safety. Now
that is a similar kind of thing that was happening when the disease spread out in Kenema.
People were dying, their bodies were all over the streets. The remaining that saw these
realities actually had to run. Most of them were crossing borders. They were carrying their
children, some of whom had contracted the virus so you could see very easily these people
who were running for safety were the very ones who started spreading the disease.
Archives: Some borders in the region have been closed ... road blocks used to restrict
people ...
Archives: A quarantine ...

The Plague: Someone had the idea of quarantining certain districts and only allowing people
whose services were indispensible to leave them.
Archives: ... had been placed on red alert.
Archives: The death toll in the Ebola outbreak for West African nations rose today to at least
932.
Archives: Some fear the actual number of people killed is more than whats being reported
...
Rachel Maher: It was difficult to know just how many victims of Ebola there were. While
bodies were piling up at Ebola treatment units, authorities knew that many people were not
declaring the sick and the dead.
Archives: In a city of a million, almost 50 new cases are reported every day.
Rachel Maher: Tolbert Nyenswah, a tropical disease expert was tasked by the President to
lead the Ebola response in Liberia. He became known as the man Ebola was scared of.
Tolbert Nyenswah: Seeing bodies in the streets, seeing sick people wanting to enter a
treatment unit and there was no space, seeing the only space available to take live patients
were being occupied by dead people, seeing the community agitating and afraid, panicking
about the disease and you personally had to move people from the treatment unit who was
dead to a burial site and so getting people from the street was a very challenging moment,
very challenging moment and when I say people, its living and dead people in their
hundreds.
Archives: The ambulance team are taking as many precautions as they can. Theyre getting
into these white suits, plastic aprons ...
The Plague: People heard with increased frequency at night the throbbing of ambulances,
sounding the dreary, passionless call of the plague beneath their windows.
Archives: These extraction workers are on yet another run. Theyve been called to the
sprawling slum of Westpoint where a spike in Ebola deaths this past ...

Janice Cooper: I would get calls where people would have dead bodies in their house for
two or three days. The burial teams and the pickup teams could not keep up. Sometimes
they didnt go home till two oclock in the morning and wed be calling them and making
more demands on them. We had talked about this pickup that was supposed to happen the
night before and the night before and the night before and one of the ministers took money
out of her pocket. She said, This money, this is the school fees for my children. And this is
how short sighted we were. We thought our kids were going to school the next month right.
This is the school fees for my children Im giving to you, just to make sure you take that
body out because its been in that home for too long. There were people who were
sleeping in their cars because there were bodies in their living rooms and they couldnt get
pickups. So we were totally overwhelmed.
Rachel Maher: Arwen Kidd is a Canadian journalist. She was at home in Liberia when the
virus reached the capital but she left for the UK soon afterwards. She was in constant
contact with her partner who stayed in Monrovia.
Arwen Kidd: I remember speaking with him about whether or not I should come back and
his immediate response was always, No. And he would say, No theres been a body in
the street outside our gate for three days and this person is not being picked up. He is still
alive, you can see that he is suffering in pain. Its rainy season, there are puddles. I live
right on the river so theres a lot of water, standing water in rainy season. And there was no
one coming to get him. People were dumping bodies here, either not taking them to the
ETU or not wanting people to come to their homes. They were afraid you know they would
taken to the ETU whether or not they were sick or they would have their belongings burned
or for whatever reason they were putting their people out into the street.
Archives: On the front line of the battle, many health workers have died. Officials say its
because they dont have proper protective gear or adequate training.
The Plague: The most surprising thing was that there was never a shortage of men to do the
job for as long as the epidemic lasted.
Archives: ... these men perform one of the most dangerous jobs ...
Archives: ... has proven to be extremely conplicated...

Rachel Maher: Knowledge about the virus was growing but rumours persisted.
Janice Cooper: And there was a lot of denial, denial even within our own healthcare
workforce and healthcare community and its hard because these are people you love and
at the same time these are people that in some ways I feel are accountable for other people
getting sick. So we could see that the situation was out of control as we understood how
many healthcare workers were practicing outside of their homes and not in safe conditions,
as we saw how many religious leader after religious leader were burying people using either
traditional rites or religious rites that were not safe, that spread the virus, as we saw imam
after imam, priest after priest, healthcare worker after healthcare worker get infected and
yet those before them did not seem to see the message. You know whole sections of choirs
and churches got EVD.
Arwen Kidd: I remember hearing from people that worked in our compound that they had
gone to churches and you know their pastors were bringing up people who were ill to the
front of the congregation and saying, Everyone must lay your hands on this person and this
is the way to heal them, and we would lay our hands on this person and obviously if that
person is sick with Ebola in that case, that is a sur- fire way, you know direct contact with an
acutely ill person, to become potentially infected.
The Plague: And of course contagion is never absolute because if it were we should have
endless exponential growth and devastating loss of population.
Archives: And so (it) was scary because the place that Liberians normally turn to, religion,
for solace, also did not understand the virus initially. We didnt always see the light at the
end of the tunnel because we were just fighting the next fire, we were fighting the next
battle, we were just moving to the next place.
Archives: Contagious and potentially deadly, over the past few months the Ebola virus has
spread rapidly in West Africa ...
The Plague: The prefect told me, lets act quickly if you like, but keep quiet about it. Then
he looked benevolently over the rest of the company and announced that he knew very well
it was plague but that of course if they were to acknowledge the fact officially, they would
have to take stern measures.

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Rachel Maher: Urgent efforts to contain the virus were taking shape on the ground but
reluctance to declare a state of emergency prevailed. Authorities were following World
Health Organization advice to be cautious. Naming the virus as a cause of emergency would
mean risking public panic and admitting that they were unable to cope with the outbreak.
Archives: It is a disease proving difficult for healthcare workers and governments to handle.
Archives: ... and trying to contain this virus in a densely packed city centre ...
The Plague: Public opinion is sacred, no panic, above all, no panic. Its not a matter of
painting a black picture, its a matter of taking precautions. He thought he could sum up the
situation by saying that if they were to halt the disease they had to apply the serious
preventative health measures provided for in law. That to do so they would have to
acknowledge officially that there was an outbreak of plague.
Rachel Maher: Finally three months after the first case of Ebola appeared in Sierra Leone
President Ernest Bai Koroma declared a national state of emergency.
President Ernest Bai Koroma: Since our country registered its first case of Ebola, my
government has been working tirelessly to bring an end to this outbreak. I have given my
approval to the National Ebola Response Centre to ...
Rachel Maher: Epicentres of the outbreak were to be quarantined, schools and markets
closed and all public gatherings restricted. The military was deployed to enforce order.
President Ernest Bai Koroma: All citizens are requested to abide by these measures as
violators will be subjected to the penalties stipulated by the laws of the country on the state
of public health emergency.
Rachel Maher: Liberia followed Sierra Leone declaring a state of emergency shortly after.
Archives: There is new concern this morning about the worst case scenario for the Ebola
outbreak. The CDC estimates up to 1.4 million cases in Africa by January. That could
happen if efforts to stop the disease arent stepped up ...
The Plague: Spring was slowly crushed beneath the double weight of the plague and the
heat.

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Archives: Reported cases in Liberia are doubling every 15 to 20 days and every 30 to 40
days...
Rachel Maher: Medical charity, Mdecines Sans Frontires had been urging the World
Health Organization to intensify its response and declare an international public health
emergency. Australian nurse Brett Adamson was in Liberia working for MSF at the time.
The Plague: The whole town had a high temperature, at least that was the feeling that
haunted him.
Archives: I feel completely overwhelmed, I feel quite emotional because theres some really
horrible situations ...
The Plague: They were gambling on chance and chance is on nobodys side.
Archives: I found a dead mother and a baby lying on the floor and I have no idea how we are
going to manage to help that baby at all.
The Plague: This whole thing is not about heroism, its about decency.
Archives: Im almost horrified by the scale of the centre that we are constructing.
The Plague: Was it truly an abstraction, spending his days in the hospital where the plague
was working overtime, bringing the number of victims up to 500 on average per week. Yes
there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune.
Archives: To think that were going to double or triple this size, triple this size.
The Plague: But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it.
Archives: So Ive just come out, I feel like vomiting right now.
The Plague: His only defence was to resort to hardening himself and tightening the knot
which had formed in him. His role was no longer that of a healer, it was that of a
diagnostician; discovering, seeing, describing, noting and then condemning. That was his
task.
Archives: But its brutal, its really, really brutal. Were struggling to get rid of the bodies as
they die. Theres a patient waiting area to my right and someone while theyre waiting to

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be seen has died, two people died in the other waiting area before they even get into the
centre, died. So were struggling to hire staff, train staff and adapt to this situation.
The Plague: This human form which had been so close to him was now pierced with spears,
burnt up with the super human fire and twisted by all the malevolent wings of disguise. It
was sinking before his eyes into the waters of the plague and he could do nothing to
prevent its wreck. He had to stay on the shore, his hands empty and his heart wrenched
with no means once more to prevent this disaster.
Archives: With concern that this health crisis is spinning out of control the World Health
Organization is holding an emergency meeting. It could declare a global health emergency,
imposing travel bans and border controls on affected countries. But some say more should
have been done earlier.
Archives: Ebola has no proven cure and theres no vaccine to prevent infection but declaring
it an international emergency could have the effect of raising the level of vigilance. The
WHO believes that heightened global awareness, with the death toll approaching 1000
across West Africa ...
The Plague: He looked at the official telegram which the prefect had held out to him saying,
theyre scared.
Archives: The committees position was unanimous. ...
The Plague: The telegram read ...
Archives: ... acknowledges the serious and unusual nature of the outbreak.
The Plague: Declare a state of plague, stop.
Archives: ... the further international spread.
The Plague: Close the town.
Archives: Some economic effects that were looking at, British Airways announcing that they
have temporarily suspended their flights to and from Liberia and Sierra Leone until August
31st ...

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Archives: At Lagos airport Nigerian health workers are stepping up efforts to stop Ebola
entering the country.
Tolbert Nyenswah: You felt left in the wilderness with nobody. You felt that...I thought this
is the time the world should be coming to our help when Im in a devastating situation.
The Plague: Once the gates were closed they all noticed that they were in the same boat.
Tolbert Nyenswah: You felt that big countries with the resources that have seen this would
come in and help the Liberian people. It took time to even mobilise foreign medical teams
to come in because they were fear that they will get infected when they were in Liberia.
Medivac to evacuate people from out of the country was an issue. And this is one of the
lessons that the world should learn, thats not a way to do it. Its against the international
health regulation. Instead of isolating the people that have the infection or infectious
disease in their country, we should isolate the disease and fight the disease. And so we had
to do it ourselves.
Music Ebola is here
Abdul Samba Brima: And it felt like the entire outside community was turning its back on
us. It really felt like we were left to tackle our own situation for ourselves, even if it meant
dying here alone.
Music
Janice Cooper: There are a couple of things that I reflect on most. My own personal
experience of course about going out and coming in but also about how the world looked on
our country. There was a lot of sympathy and there was a lot of empathy and a lot of desire
to help but there was also this pariah state feeling, not very unsimilar to what happened
during the civil war. So these analogies keep coming back and back.
Music
Archives -Barack Obama: I want to take a few moments to speak directly to you, the people
of West Africa. On behalf of the American people I want you to know that our prayers are
with those of you who have lost loved ones during this terrible outbreak of Ebola.

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Archives Queen Elizabeth: ... these differences will take time ...
The Plague: He read in the newspapers and heard on the radio the appeals and
encouragement that the outside world got through to the stricken town.
Archives Queen Elizabeth: ... bringing reconciliation to war or emergency zones is an even
harder task.
Archives -Barack Obama: First Ebola is not spread through the air like ...

The Plague: Every evening on the airwaves or in the press pitying or admiring comments
rained down on this now solitary town.
Archives -Barack Obama: ... casual contact like sitting next to someone on the bus. ... You
are not alone.
Archives Queen Elizabeth: And I have been deeply touched this year by the selflessness of
aid workers and medical volunteers who have gone abroad to help victims of ...
The Plague: The doctor was irritated by the epic note or the tone of a prize giving address.
Archives Queen Elizabeth: ... or of diseases like Ebola often at great personal risk.
Archives -Barack Obama: ... this kind of outbreak doesnt happen again.
The Plague: It may serve to make some people great, however when you see the suffering
and pain that it brings, you have to be mad, blind or a coward to resign yourself to the
plague.
Music