Ebola has swept across West Africa and killed more than 5000 people so far. University of Tasmania psychology lecturer Douglas Paton has been working from Launceston to try to contain the deadly virus. COREY MARTIN reports.
WORKING with a community that distrusts the Western world is challenging, and when you are trying to communicate ways to halt a lethal disease from spreading, the challenge is even more compounded.
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University of Tasmania psychology lecturer Douglas Paton is playing a leading role from Launceston in the World Health Organisation's efforts to steam Ebola's flow in West Africa.
The Scottish-born natural disaster specialist has been working with the WHO for the past 12 months developing progressive strategies, plans and ideas for the Ebola outbreak and future health issues.
Professor Paton has worked as a WHO adviser during the swine flu pandemic and various earthquakes and tsunamis, and was an expert witness at the Victorian fires Royal Commission.
"How do we communicate effectively with people when we are trying to get them to change their behaviours? How to notify a family member that is ill? How to protect yourself and what not to do?" Professor Paton asked.
"There are still continuing issues about trying to change people's health behaviours.
"The next stage over the next few weeks will probably start to look at how we start to communicate effectively when we are trying to rule out ways of actively treating and more direct medical preventative programs."
He said issues in the next phase of the Ebola fight would generate from running controlled trials of drugs being developed in the US.
Professor Paton said getting people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to understand the concepts of a controlled trial would be difficult.
"Because the drugs are so relatively untried, that seems protocol has to be sort of ruled out when providing those drugs within Western Africa," he said.
"That it is very important to give it to you, but not to you, and that is the space we are working in."
The WHO last estimated that 5160 people have died of Ebola across eight countries, from a total 14,098 cases of infection - making it the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
Professor Paton said there was a measured way to communicate the risks without creating hysteria.
"How much you go towards increasing people's anxiety about what could happen versus informing them and how you culturally deal with it," he said.
"We tend to communicate more effectively not by telling people there is something dangerous in front of them, but more when we get people to think about the issues that are important to them like safeguarding their family."
Professor Paton said it was important for local leaders in West Africa to help provide information in small doses to their people, as they sounded more powerful and credible.
"It is very contagious if you come into contact with bodily fluids, but if you don't then it is actually a lot safer than things like flu . . . how do we get people to talk effectively with others about how preventative measures can take place?" he said. "How do you do that in an environment where these people can't afford or are unwilling to utilise formal health resources?
"The main focus was trying to minimise the rate of infection through just changing people's behaviour, and we have no idea about how effective that has been.
"Western professionals aren't that good in communicating generally with people from collectivistic cultures because we don't know how to be as inclusive, we often don't know how to talk around issues and that is very important when working with others.
"This has been an enduring distrust of Western intervention in Africa because historically they come in, do something and then they leave.
"If we can work through community leaders, that can do a lot of the translating and do it in ways that accommodate more of the issues about spiritual issues, diversity and religious beliefs, in spiritual practices and the way in which people relate to others."
Professor Paton said it was difficult to gauge how successful the communication methods had been and that they would be reviewed at a meeting in a few weeks' time when advisers were provided with feedback by management.
He said he was hopeful to use lessons learnt from the Ebola outbreak for the delivery of future programs to make them more effective.
He said Australia and the world had not done enough to help the West Africans, and what had been done came too late.
"I think the international response has improved of late but again it has only been after a few horses have bolted from several stables," Professor Paton said.
"If we compare it to how many deaths have been from acts of terrorism, how much has our country spent on terrorist-related protection, yet there have been 5000-plus deaths from Ebola."
