1. In different cultures, people have different traditions. Most of which seem pretty harmless, unless a virus is introduced amongst the population. In the film, the Ebola virus was spread unintentional in 3 main ways: handshaking, burial rituals, and selling and eating infected animal meat. When people greet each other in Zaire, a handshake is usually the method that is used. However with the Ebola outbreak, handshaking spread the virus too easily amongst the community. It is also custom to have a special burial ritual for those who die.
In this ritual, a lot of people tend to touch the dead corpse exposing everyone to the virus. Since the virus was originally hosted in fruit bats and was then passed on to chimpanzees, gorillas, antelope, and even porcupines. Many of the meat in Zaire is hunted down, most the meet they eat are gorillas and bat meat, spreading the virus even more. 2. In Zaire, two examples of “structural violence” playing a role in exposure to the virus are how people first reacted to the virus and how they began taking care of the ill. When Ebola first started infecting the Zaire people, many were not sure what was the cause.
Naturally, they believed it was sorcery. As scientists began to act on the situation, people preferred to either continue believing it was sorcery, or go into complete denial about a deathly disease being the cause. After people realized that it was better to listen to the scientists, people began to change. However, they could not change too much due to their environmental and/or financial situation.
People lived in small hut like houses that would hold several people, allowing for any kind of bacteria or virus to spread throughout the community. Scientist recommended isolating people from the sick as much as possible. The Zaire doctors decided to use the hospital for isolation, however, it was not big enough to hold all the infected people and the only thing separating the entire hospital from the healthy world was a small hole filled with bleach. 3. During the outbreak, many of the doctors and scientists attempted to control the spread of Ebola.
However, because many people in Zaire were very skeptical of the existence of such deathly disease, it was a hard task for them. They attempted to isolate the ill from the healthy at the hospital. Unfortunately the hole at the entrance of the hospital filled with bleach and not having enough room in the hospital soon became very ineffective. They then attempted to control the epidemic by removing the infected corpses by burning them. This made many Zaire people angry because they were accustomed to their meaningful burial traditions.
A last major situation when the people did not agree with the doctors and scientists’ method of control was isolation in general. Families in Zaire preferred to be together, taking care of each other, so when they were being forced to separate because of someone got sick, it made them extremely angry and hateful towards those that were only trying to help. At the end of the film however, people were scared more about dying than about leaving a family member in isolation, which made it a little better for the doctors and scientists to attempt the control of Ebola. 4. The main reason why people in Zaire did not want to come forward was fear.
They were extremely scared that if they or someone else in their family got sick, they would never see them ever again. They intentionally made sure that nobody else knew about the sick so nobody would be taken away to isolation. Due to many people attempting to hide those that were sick, the doctors and scientists decided to educate the people in Zaire. They showed the community a video that talked about Ebola. This allowed them to slowly get through to the people, especially as the amount of deaths increased. 5.
If anthropologists handled the outbreak, there would be more talking to the people in Zaire about cultural customs and their beliefs. If doctors and scientists were more aware of what the native people believed in and practiced, the outbreak could have been better controlled. Also anthropologists could have been able to better inform the native people of what is going on to their village and calmly make sure they listen in order to control the outbreak better. If they could also find a better way to work with the several conditions in Zaire, the natives could have cooperated better with the situation.