Liberia: Collecting Liberia's Ebola Dead

Monrovia — In Liberia, the bodies of people suspected to have died from Ebola are collected by teams of volunteers who take them for testing and then cremation if the virus is confirmed. It is gruelling work for the volunteers.

In Liberia, more than 1,300 people have died since March from Ebola. It is largely volunteers who have taken on the grim task of collecting dead bodies from communities across the country, sometimes up to 30 a day.

The volunteers are frequently met by weeping members of the victim's family but their job is not to console the grieving relatives but to ensure that the bodies are removed in a way that will prevent further infection.

A body waits for collection in a shack in a Monrovia slum

One day recently the team was called to the Monrovia home of a family that had just lost three members - a 7 year-old boy and two elderly women. Nine men dressed in white biohazard suits, one of them with a container of disinfectant spray on his back, arrived to collect the bodies.

First, the entire area was sprayed with disinfectant. Then each body was collected and zipped into a double strength body bag. Four men carried each bag to a waiting truck.

They were then taken to an Ebola center to test that that the virus was in fact the cause of death. Once this is confirmed, the bodies are then cremated. If it emerges that Ebola was not the cause of death, the bodies are returned to their families for burial.

Swift body collection is vital

Mark Korvayan is the head of the Monrovia team. He used to work as an environmental health practictioner before volunteering to help collect bodies. He told DW that it was not an easy job. "It is only God that is carrying me through, along with the team and the police officers that join us. This is a battle we are in," he said.

Mark Korvayan and his team collect up to 30 bodies a day

Mark and his team have been working since the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia late March. He says they fully understand the risks involved but they are doing the work for their country. "Yesterday I carried 16 bodies. Sometimes I carry 22, 25 or even 30 a day."

This grim task of collecting Ebola victims attracts the attention of community dwellers and passers-by who stand and watch as the team perform their job. Dax Gray, a resident of Monrovia, said seeing the team in action had increased his awareness of the virus.

O'Neil Bestman, a communication officer with the Liberian National Red Cross, which is managing the collection of Ebola victims in partnership with Liberia's Health Ministry, says the work of the body collection team is critical to containing the virus. "If the bodies stay too long in a community, it increases the risk of transmission. Because then other people may want to come around - that's our culture - and would want to sympathize with people who are in a desperate situation or distressed. I think the bold step to break the chain of transmission is the timely picking up of the bodies and we, the Red Cross, are very committed to doing that," he said.

There are around 50 men currently involved in the collection of Ebola bodies across Liberia. The prospect of work - any work - is attractive to the country's many young unemployed youths. Roland Kercula is one of dozens who want to join an Ebola body collection team. "We want to render our services to see how best we can kick away this Ebola sickness. Because if we just fold our hands, the virus will try to take control of this entire place. One reason why we want to do this job is to see how best Ebola is eradicated from our country," Roland told DW.

With international health organizations warning that Liberia should brace itself for thousands more Ebola cases, there will be no lack of work for the burial teams for some time.