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One Man’s Fight Against One of the World’s Deadliest Diseases
by Dr. Ross Donaldson MD, MPH
Book Reviewed by:Ross Donaldson is one of just a few who have ventured into dark territory of a country ravaged by war to study one of the world's most deadly diseases.More than just an adventure story, it is a portrait of the Sierra Leone people and the struggle of those risking all to aid them.
Ross Donaldson is one of just a few who have ventured into dark territory of a country ravaged by war to study one of the world’s most deadly diseases. As an untried medical student studying the intersection of global health and communicable disease, Donaldson soon found himself in dangerous Sierra Leone, on the border of war-struck Liberia, where he struggled to control the spread of Lassa Fever. The words, “you know Lassa can kill you, don’t you?” haunted him each day. With the country in complete upheaval and working conditions suffering, he is forced to make life-and-death decisions alone as a never-ending onslaught of contagious patients flood the hospital. Soon however, he is not only fighting for others but himself when he becomes afflicted with a life threatening disease. The Lassa Ward is more than just an adventure story about the making of a physician; it is a portrait of the Sierra Leone people and the human struggle of those risking their daily comforts and lives to aid them.
A potent mix of travel memoir, coming-of-age narrative and medical mystery. Donaldson's experiences treating a frighteningly infectious and often deadly hemorrhagic fever, the strength of his West African patients, and his own grave illness bring him to a contemplation of mortality, poverty, civil war, and medicine as it is practiced in the first and third worlds...continued
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(Reviewed by Jo Perry).
For a short history of Sierra Leone, Africa, see the sidebar to Ancestor Stones, by Aminatta Forna.
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- Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics
A touching and compelling account. The Lassa Ward brings to life the challenges and rewards that dedicated development workers face daily around the world.
