A recent report that a runaway Sierre Leone Ebola patient had been located but died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital is good news for the wrong reasons. Maybe this incident will help members of the community understand that Ebola is not a gimmick aimed at carrying out "cannibalistic rituals."
As a Nigerian-American who spent most of my adolescence in Nigeria, I am not surprised at the mistrust of health care workers or at the misconceptions surrounding the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone.
Unfortunately, superstition is part of everyday life in Africa. Some of the superstitions I heard growing up were "never put your pocketbook on the floor, or else you'll be broke," or "if you dream of fish, someone will have a baby," or "the first year of life, don't cut a baby's hair" and so on.
