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Article_An arsenal against Ebola - learned in South Florida

Feature News | Tuesday, April 14, 2015

An arsenal against Ebola - learned in South Florida

St. Jerome graduate helped stop epidemic in Liberia

Sister Vivian Gomez and Dr. Richard Childs show the awards they presented each other during a recent dinner-dance for St. Jerome School.

Photographer: Jim Davis

Sister Vivian Gomez and Dr. Richard Childs show the awards they presented each other during a recent dinner-dance for St. Jerome School.

FORT LAUDERDALE | When Sister Vivian Gomez heard one of her graduates of St. Jerome School was going to Ebola-stricken Liberia, she sent him a tongue-in-cheek message: "If something happens, we'll put a bench for you in front of the school."

"Somehow, I didn't find that very reassuring," Dr. Richard Childs said with a smile at a recent benefit for the school. "But I'm not dead yet."

As a top official of the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., he knew he was trained and equipped to help combat one of the most deadly plagues known.

Dr. Richard Childs shows an engraved mahogany plaque he presented to Sister Vivian Gomez, principal of St. Jerome School.

Photographer: Jim Davis

Dr. Richard Childs shows an engraved mahogany plaque he presented to Sister Vivian Gomez, principal of St. Jerome School.

Close-up of the commemorative coin presented to Sister Vivian Gomez by Dr. Richard Childs.

Photographer: Jim Davis

Close-up of the commemorative coin presented to Sister Vivian Gomez by Dr. Richard Childs.

Close-up of the commemorative coin presented to Sister Vivian Gomez by Dr. Richard Childs.

Photographer: Jim Davis

Close-up of the commemorative coin presented to Sister Vivian Gomez by Dr. Richard Childs.

And as the product of a Catholic education, Childs had been taught to care for his fellow man and instilled with the drive to help.

"St. Jerome School was my first exposure to the concept of service, respect for human life," said the doctor, who received an award for Humanitarian of the Year from his alma mater at the March 21 event. "Caring, compassion, empathy, service, these are all Catholic values."

Childs served in Liberia, west Africa, from December to February, as chief medical officer for over 74 medical workers at the Monrovia Medical Unit. Their main job was backing up 2,000 healthcare providers by caring for any of who contracted the illness. That reduced their fear of treating the public, he said.

He entered a land where all schools and hospitals had been closed by Ebola. By mid-January, more than 8,000 people had died of the illness in Liberia — including half of all healthcare workers. And 50 more people were getting infected every week.

Childs had been following the progress of Ebola for years and felt a drive to make a difference.

"I believed west Africans have gotten a bad deal. They're poor and crime ridden, and the governments are corrupt. The last thing they needed was a virus to wreak havoc on society,” he said. "If we hadn't intervened, they wouldn't have survived on their own. Liberia would have been wiped off the map."

His unit brought in sophisticated diagnostic chemistry, X-ray and ultrasound equipment. It also stocked medicines, oxygen and blood transfusion equipment.

Childs' staff saw dozens of patients, some of whom died even before they could be treated. He and other workers had to don hazmat-like suits to cover their bodies, hands and faces, to protect themselves. The bulky suits took 20 minutes to put on properly, then 25 minutes to take off. And in the 100-degree weather of Liberia, they could wear the suits for 90 minutes or less.

The work took 16 to 18 hours a day, he said. "I went two months without a day off. I'd fall asleep on my cot with my phone in my hand."

But he also saw the survival rate climb to 70 percent. "People would walk in critically ill, certain to die; then many would leave cured."

Childs' other task was to develop a vaccine against Ebola. His unit finished an initial test phase on 800 people, with promising results. Now he wants to try it on a larger sample, which he's finding hard; with the epidemic fading, the Liberian government is less enthusiastic for a follow-up.

"We're still trying to persuade them," he said.

On his return to America, he got an automatic vote of confidence from Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general. Murthy threw open his arms and gave him a big hug.

Childs was alarmed at first, after more than two months in a land where no one hugged for fear of catching Ebola. "But then I realized two things. One, I was back in America. Two, he trusted that we were well."

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