World Bank Podcasts

Mohammed Sidie Sheriff (or Sidie as he is known) is one of nearly 900 health workers who have been infected during the current outbreak of Ebola. The lab technician at Maculey Street Government Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone completed as many as 100 blood tests on suspected Ebola patients before falling victim to the hemorrhagic fever himself. He believes he contracted the disease while taking a blood sample from a 4-year-old boy, who was infected with Ebola, and later died. He was wearing full protective gear, when he believes a single drop of blood breached his defenses. Within a week, he started to show symptoms. We met him at his work in the lab at the Maculey Street Government Hospital where he told the story of the day he believes he became infected. SOUNDBITE: “I went into the holding center with the necessary precautions. And I went there purposefully to get this child’s blood. So I went to the mother, and I asked her, I said to her, Madame, please help me I have come to take the blood o