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WORD OF MOUTH

http://news.yahoo.com/africas-medicine-men-key-halting-ebola-spread-guinea-061807365.html;_ylt=AwrBT9JCIvRUUAQAOo1XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzM2IxbTdwBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDVklQNTc3XzEEc2VjA3Nj


Jean Marie Dangou, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Guinea, said the "Stop Ebola" campaign based on modern communication technology, had all but failed.

"For about one year the main communication strategy was built around media, mainly radio and TV, but it wasn't successful. The country is still dealing with tough and repetitive resistance," Dangou said.

West Africa has recorded some weekly declines in new confirmed cases of Ebola since the start of 2015, but resistance in some communities has undermined efforts to end the epidemic.
The main message from this outbreak is that communication must be adapted to fit the local culture, Dangou said.

Word of mouth may be a better way of getting information out than modern methods in parts of the world where broadcast signals are weak and power for electrical appliances is scarce.
"Lessons learned from Ebola in Guinea can be applied to cholera, malaria or any other infectious disease in other parts of the world that rely on an oral tradition," Dangou added.

At the start of the outbreak, traditional healers were viewed as part of the problem, rather than being recruited to help halt the disease.

"Our communication was top down and the way we delivered the messages was wrong. We told people to stop doing things without explaining why," Dangou told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In a shift in policy, community leaders, including healers, are given information and asked to act on it as they see fit. As a result, many have appropriated the "Stop Ebola" messages.

Traditional healers are also supplementing disease surveillance and helping response teams that search for cases.

"Most traditional healers are now aware of the risk of treating Ebola patients. More and more patients are coming to health facilities after a referral from their healer," said Dangou.

A PRICE
Given their important role in efforts to stamp out Ebola, the services of traditional healers should come at a price, said Joseph Souro Mamadouno, 58, a Catholic guérisseur from Macenta.
"Ebola is here today, but it could be cholera tomorrow. We can spread health messages, but the government should cover costs of transport, food and the time we take off work," said Mamadouno, who also works at the local agriculture school.
According to the healers' association, some 2,000 herbal practitioners in Macenta, a district with a population of around 300,000 close to the Liberian border, are out of pocket as a result of the Ebola response.

Ebola shares symptoms with less serious diseases traditional healers say they can treat: fatigue, fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea. But now these cases are referred to hospitals.

Koly Beavogui, 80, an animist traditional healer from Macenta said she and other female guérisseurs have been reduced to begging for food from neighbors and foraging in the forest.

The scrawny woman, with a wrinkled face and toothless smile, used to treat five to six people a day, but now hardly sees anyone.

"When the sick come to see me, I only ask them to give me whatever they can afford, because we don't buy illness, so we shouldn't have to pay for treatments," said Beavogui, sitting outside her freshly-swept, mudbrick house.

But others are fearful of turning Ebola into an industry.
"I'm not in favor of incentives, because it looks like we are in an Ebola business. These people should become agents of change, in their own community, without any kind of payment," the WHO's Dangou said.

(Reporting by Misha Hussain; Editing by Ros Russell)
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