National Geographic News Kailahun. Sierra Leone. Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) Ebola Treatment Center. In the forest, a few
meters from the MSF health center, a WHO team is burying the
bodies of deceased patients whose families did not come.
Photograph by Sylvain Cherkaoui, Cosmos via Redux  Karen
Weintraub  for National Geographic  Published August 8, 2014
American virologist Joseph Fair has been living in Sierra Leone
for much of the last decade, most recently advising the ministry
of health on how to cope with the Ebola outbreak. Last month,
when he visited the community hospital in Kenema, 186 miles (300
km) inland from the capital city of Freetown, he greeted old
friends with warm embraces. Within two weeks, three of them were
dead, felled by Ebola, which the World Health Organization
Friday declared a Public Health Emergency of International
Concern, its highest level of alert.  With his grief still raw,
Fair, a special advisor to the ministry of health, works
12-plus-hour days helping to coordinate