Lourdes alum returns from Ebola intervention in Nigeria

By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

MIAMI| Dr. Aileen Marty, a former U.S. Navy doctor and expert in infectious diseases, including anthrax, said the West African outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus will be contained only if all ports of entry in the region are adequately screening for infected carriers.

Strengthening screening protocols at the land, air and sea ports in and around Nigeria was one of the top priorities for the doctor. During a 31-day assignment to Africa, the Miami-native and professor of medicine at Florida International University recently undertook the directive of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Dr. Marty, who spoke with the media on Sept. 22, a week after her return to the U.S., said WHO officials have been particularly worried that if Ebola gained a foothold in Nigeria -- with its large urban population and the region�s largest economy -- the results would be globally devastating.

An estimated 5,000 West Africans have already been infected with the Ebola disease that has killed approximately 2,500, including one Liberian-American man who in July reportedly imported the virus into Nigeria. That patient died in Nigeria along with several others who later became infected.

�One individual flew into Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, by far, with an overwhelming impoverished population and that led to a social and economic crisis as well as a personal tragedy for a number of individuals,� said Dr. Marty, a Cuban-American and class of 1975 alumnus of Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, an all-girls archdiocesan high school in Miami.

During her trip to Nigeria, Dr. Marty helped set up a special quarantined field hospital for treating infected patients. She also traveled to several states around the country to track possible cases, train border personnel and assess the overall situation.

Originally, she had planned on being sent to the hard-hit region of Sierra Leone, but after the first cases of Ebola virus were reported in Nigeria the WHO redirected her there.

She personally screened an estimated 1,000 possible carriers of the virus, including numerous that were later confirmed.

Recounting some of the ramifications from that one imported case of Ebola into Nigeria, Dr. Marty said, �the entire country was affected, schools were closed, industry was affected, trade was affected, tourism was affected, sports were affected and people are now afraid of Nigerians all because one individual in one airplane brought this disease to that country.

�Therefore, taking care of the points of entry where you enter and exit the country became an absolute imperative, and still is -- while the outbreak rages on in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, you have to maintain vigilance at the points of entry in these countries,� Dr. Marty said.

Nigeria is better prepared for that now, she added, due to recent efforts to boost screening procedures at the country�s international airports and seaports, �but land ports were a lot harder because for every legal land border crossing there are a dozen more illegal border crossings so that became a campaign of dealing with the (tribal) chiefs and encouraging them to see why it was in their interests to control the movement of ill individuals across their borders.�

Dr. Marty said her WHO team in Nigeria was responsible for finding and training local volunteers to assist with traveler screenings and creating a protocol that could be taught to college students and science majors. Nigerian physicians will also be trained so they can intercept cases that fail primary screenings. The work also entailed seeking financial and other donations from airlines, breweries and oil companies working in Nigeria and mobilizing society at large to be aware of what was going on.

�We looked for a (traveler screening) system that would be very sensitive but not necessarily very specific and since it wasn�t very specific we expected a number of false positives, but that is a safer thing for the world.�

Since religious beliefs in Nigeria are diverse, the WHO media team also did some public awareness outreach to the churches there.

�Had Ebola spread among the impoverished people of Nigeria it would have been a world calamity. It can be brought under control but it does take a lot of resources and a lot of equipment,� Dr. Marty said.

Coming home, Dr. Mary admitted she was not impressed with what she saw as a weak screening at airports in Europe and the United States. She observed that a plane full of passengers from West Africa arriving in Europe did not get much scrutiny.

�Certainly when I landed in Europe, on an entire plane coming from a county that has Ebola, it probably would have been a good idea to at least do rudimentary questions and screenings of people getting off the flight and that they get tracked wherever they are going,� she said.

�In my case I was in transit to the U.S. and so I wasn�t screened in Europe and I wasn�t screened in Miami and, although I happen to know I am safe, the U.S. should have at least inquired about my situation,� she said.

As she has traveled on special assignments in some 50 countries, Our Lady of Lourdes Academy has supported her. In 2007 the school presented her with the Outstanding Career Achievement Bernadette Award for her distinguished research and work on infectious diseases, including the study of biological weapons such as anthrax and sarin.

Her alma mater has also allowed her to remain close to her graduating class, especially a group of 12 classmates from Our Lady of Lourdes Academy who playfully call themselves �The Dirty Dozen.�

Martica Castellanos, alumni director at Lourdes Academy, said another of Dr. Marty�s classmates from 1975 is singer and Miami native Gloria Estefan, who is also part of the alumni group that meets frequently.

 �I have a lot of contacts with my class because we were a very close year in 1975 and we had a lot of wonderful people who graduated that year and we really care for each other,� she said. �There are 12 of us trying to get together regularly once a month; even when I lived all over the place I tried to come back to the meetings.�