Images of health workers in full-body protective suits and frail, suffering civilians have become the faces of West Africa’s Ebola epidemic in the media.
But today the Washington Post shows a different depiction of the outbreak, through murals painted on bright red backdrops and colorful posters decorating communal areas. It highlights how leaders in West Africa are attempting to educate the public about how to avoid the Ebola virus – or recognize when they might have it – sans Twitter, YouTube and all the other social tools that first-world public health campaigns rely on.
They’ve done it through graphic murals depicting Ebola symptoms, billboards advertising a hotline number to call if symptoms appear, posters promoting hand washing and flyers in common public places. See the striking photos here.
The outbreak has been deemed a public health emergency, and its death toll in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria stands at nearly 2,300.
