Ebola. Hantavirus. Here we go again. Tracking outbreaks to see if they are going to spread across the world. Triggering fear: virus, epidemic, pandemic. And a flood of headlines. The locations, the numbers, the details change but the gist of the message is always the same. Keep the disease away from us. 

But today we meet someone who heard the news of an Ebola outbreak and ran straight at it. Into the hot zone. To the epicentre, to a village in what was then Zaire 30 years ago. Her five weeks living and reporting from that bush hospital resulted in her documentary film Ebola: Inside an Outbreak. The film earned her Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism. Her name is Ric Bienstock and she’s here with her firsthand account of the Ebola virus, how people live and die with it, what it means as a global health challenge, and whether or not this virus is something that Canadians need to fear.

Host: Jesse Brown

Credits: Caleb Thompson (Audio Editor), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), max collins (Director of Audio), Jesse Brown (Editor and Publisher)

Additional music by Audio Network

Fact checking by Julian Abraham

More information:

• No Ebola cases in Canada and no new hantavirus cases, chief public health officer says - CBC News

• Good Soup Productions - Website

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