Wednesday, November 5, 2014

No Ebola Here!

You have to live under a rock not to know that there is an ebola outbreak in West Africa, an outbreak that is leading to tremendous fear and suffering.  By West Africa, I mean in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.  When Dr. Falan Mouton gives presentations on Lifebox in Africa, she likes to display an image like this:


In this image, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are generally in the area of Southern California, and Cameroon is essentially in the area that would be south of eastern Texas.  One concerned colleague pointed out that it is “only a plane ride away.”  This is true, but it is also true that if people from West Africa get in a plane, it is more likely to be going to Europe or the US than to Cameroon.  More importantly, the people who are suffering from Ebola Virus Disease are not very likely to get into a commercial airplane, since most of them are too poor to afford an extravagance such as this.

Nevertheless, ebola fear is in full swing and while the Europeans and Americans that I met during my trip to Cameroon were happy to be there advancing our projects, several groups have also cancelled out of fear of ebola.  I am sorry that children in Cameroon will be dying of cardiac disease because children in Liberia are dying of ebola.

Although Ebola Virus Disease is serious and scary, and should be respected, I submit a few observations for perspective.  While I was in Cameroon, no Americans died from Ebola Virus Disease.  (The only Americans who have acquired EVD are those who have directly cared for victims of EVD.  This is generally true of West Africans as well.)  While I was in Cameroon, several Americans died in school shootings and in apparently random highway shooting violence.  It appears that I am still much more likely to get the flu, and die from it, than to get EVD.  I might point out that I have been vaccinated against the flu, and many people I know refuse this vaccine.  For my part, I would like to strongly recommend that we support those trying to treat this terrible problem in the way that we support people in other natural disasters, and avoid treating victims like criminals.

Doings in the absence of Ebola

I returned from Shisong Saturday evening, and I cannot call this trip anything but resoundingly successful.  I was there for 12 working days, and we completed 10 open heart surgeries and 5 pediatric interventional catheterization cases.  These patients ranged from age 10-49 and all of the cases were double valve repair/replacement except for one that was for replacement of aortic valve and ascending aorta and proximal aortic arch.  As of the time I left, all but one patient had been discharged from the ICU and 2 were preparing for discharge from the hospital.  Almost all of the patients were sponsored, at least to a significant degree, by one of the various organizations that I have discussed here in the past.  In particular, Mi-Do has done a phenomenal job of raising funds for both pediatric and adult patients who need cardiac surgery.


There were a variety of visitors and rotating physicians around the cardiac center.  There is a General Practice physician interested in cardiac surgery, and there were 3 cardiology residents rotating at the center for 2 months.  We were able to discuss cardiac surgical issues as well as increase their experience in transesophageal echocardiography.


In addition to the successful surgical mission, Fr. Herald Brock, CFR, of Franciscan Mission Outreach (https://www.facebook.com/franciscanmissionoutreach - there are pictures) visited the Cardiac Centre to evaluate options for further fundraising to sponsor patients for surgery and connect the Centre with organizations that can help to acquire funds for equipment and supplies such as heart valves.  I do believe that it was providential that the Mi-Do staff were there at the same time.  It was a great thing for Fr. Herald to meet with Andrea Marie and Claudia to discuss opportunities for partnership and allowing the poorest of the poor to have necessary surgical care.  I expect to have further detail on this soon.


Finally, I was blessed to have excellent timing for this trip in another way.  Both Eric and Logan Horne and Tanjong Benson and Emma had their babies (Gabriel and Cindy Trina) just before I left.  Everyone is healthy.