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PSYCHOLOGY
Health-care workers struggle to help people who have been traumatized by the epidemic.
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa may be fading, but its impact on mental health could linger for years. Survivors are often haunted by traumatic memories and face rejection by society when they return home, and those who never contracted the disease may grieve for lost relatives or struggle to cope with extreme anxiety.
Aid groups and governments are battling to address the situation in a region that has little in terms of mental-health infrastructure. There has been some progress: on 25 February, for example, the World Bank and the governments of Japan and Liberia announced a US$3-million plan to provide psychosocial support in Liberia. But the fear and distrust of authorities that have helped Ebola to spread also make it difficult to manage the toll on mental health. And measures to contain the virus, such as quarantines, can limit access to the necessary treatment.
"We're still seeing anxiety, and people in survival mode," says Georgina Grundy Campbell, a mental-health nurse with the non-profit International Medical Corps (IMC) in Lunsar, Sierra Leone. "The majority of psychological problems are because the country is frozen, with nothing moving forward," she says.
West Africa is...
