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I have written earlier that my youngest daughter works for the  International RescueCommittee (IRC) which is based in Geneva and New York City in the US. However,their work are mostly in public health in under-developed countries, particularlyAfrica. Thus, they are on the front line of the current Ebola outbreak in western Africa. For the past months, she has been working in the epic center of the disease, Sierra Leone. While admiring her dedication, we are naturally concerned as parents. Fortunately, she is winding up her work and is coming home in a few days.

Accordingto her, the situation is not as bad as the US press make it out to be  –certainly not at the 10,000 new infections per week as reported and predicted. In major centers, people are well informed and practice careful discipline. It is in not well educated countryside that the disease rages. Because of seniority her work is mostly administrative and managerial, and not dealing with day-to-day care of patients (although she does have a license as registered nurse). She feels relatively safe. But she washes her hand often,  does not shake hands with others upon meeting or being introduced.These are also practiced by all citizens in the city. Hotels and public buildings have temperature check for  all persons who enter. In fact none of these are practiced in the US. And so far,  the only two patients who contracted the disease in the US while caring for the index  patient are on their way to recovery. Thus, the politicians and the media are being extra ordinarily careful and exaggerating the situation for their own purposes  to some extent. It is my feeling that in time this outbreak will be contained,  died away, and not becoming a pandemic in the world.

Note added 10/31/2014: Becuase of the fractured and inconsistent policies of different state governments, the Ebola defense of the US has become a messy battlground between the federal and the state, science vs. politics, and facts vs. fear with individuals such as the nurse Kaci Hickok caught in the middle. Actually so far there has only been one death and one current patient and all five properly cared patient recovered in the entire country. I sincrely hope the last sentence of my original blog article above will turn out to be true.

Note added 11/13/2014. As of today, the US is ebola free with no patient or infected personnel.

Note added 11/7/2014: We had dinner with our daugthers in NYC the night before. She is fine but going back to Sierra Leone again in a week since her work is not finished and the disease is still raging there.

Note added 12/15/2014. Today TIME magazine name the 2014 Person of the Year as all the Ebolahealth care workers which puts our daughter among the honored. We are very proud parents.

Note added Jan 14, 2015. Here is a report by local Chinese newspaper about Lara's work in Africa and her home coming, http://www.worldjournal.com/view/full_ma/26360432/article-%E4%BD%95%E7%A7%80%E6%BC%AA-%E6%8A%97%E4%BC%8A%E6%B3%A2%E6%8B%89%E5%89%8D%E7%B7%9A%E5%8B%87%E5%A3%AB?instance=bo1