If you tuned out the announcer and just looked at the conditions, it was an education and a half, and the conditions they showed exist in the cities. Bush hospitals are considerably worse. City hospitals are rattle trap corrugated sheet metal with hand painted signs on the metal. There is no nifty emergency bay and the waiting room is often outdoors, people suffering having to wait until people inside either die or get discharged before they can come in and start treatment.
Early treatment is one of the keys to managing this disease, hydration packets are being sold for about a buck a pack, six packs needed per day per patient and these are people who can't afford even that so they lie in the street, waiting for a bed to open up.
Even Mexican poverty is nowhere near as bad as African poverty.
The earliest the vaccine now in limited human trials could get rushed to Africa is about two years. That is if it is rushed. It and others farther back in the pipeline are the only hope we have of stopping this thing, especially since it becomes an STD for up to 3 months in those lucky enough to survive it.
One quibble with the NOVA video so far, the bravest people in the world are outreach workers going into remote villages without the full body protective gear because that gear caused villagers, sick and well alike, to hide in the bush until they left. They load the sick into the back of a van with a plastic barrier protecting the cab from the back. They have bleach solutions to clean their hands and arms after loading a patient. This might or might not be effective for light contact.
We still know so little about this disease. Much information is likely to change quickly.
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