Ebola: He saw his family die but survived. Now Douda is shunned You can survive Ebola, but you never win. If you recover from the disease, the chances are that you will have lost almost everything else. Survivor Douda Fullah watched five members of his family die in an Ebola ward. First, his lab technician father, followed by his stepmother, his grandmother, two-year-old brother and 13-year-old sister. His grief and immediate need for food and money has already been captured in a video appeal seen on British and American TV news. But during a meeting in Freetown it is clear that, in Douda's case, Ebola has a double legacy: unimaginable grief and the burden of taking his father's place not just in the family but in the community. "I'm having up to 15 people depending on me ... it's really, really hard," he said. I have younger sisters and brothers and cousins living in the same house. My father especially used to care for them ... and even for my uncles in the village, my grandfather, he used to care for them. Now that he is no more, everybody is looking to me. The harsh irony of being an Ebola survivor is that, instead of being treated as a victim who needs support at the time of familial devastation, he has been shunned by neighbours and parents" friends who believe that he still carries the virus. "Friends of mum and dad, I don't remember any of them coming to my house since Ebola," he said. And his neighbours? They don't come very close to me ... neighbours stand 10ft away ... it's really, really stigmatising. Just imagine ... you have lost your relatives, especially your parents, and they don't come near you. They are still afraid. As an educated medical professional, his father was a respected figure in his village, where illiteracy and poverty is common. Those who relied on his father for medicine or money for food now come to Douda. Now that he has gone, they are trying as much in their own little way to help themselves; it is hard for them, like most areas in the village it is really hard. They come and says "hey, Douda, you are my only hope, you have to be strong" ... even though that person may not tell you directly, "I need money." You can tell that's what they want. I pretend as if I don't know what's happening. But I know it hurts me really," he says. By any standards, Douda's father was middle class, although by no means wealthy. He owned his own lab in Kenema and would travel with the ambulance to the government hospital when Ebola first struck. During a family meeting, their father warned them of the dangers of Ebola, and told them of the importance of not touching others and washing with chlorine. Douda begged him not to continue with his job. "He said, "If I ran away now, what do you think people would say about me? I would be a coward ... If I'm going to die in this, that's it,"" recalls Douda. But instead of being honoured in death for saving lives, his father was branded a killer with rumours around that health workers were injecting people with the virus at the hospital. It is really stigmatising, they are still thinking that we have the virus. Some people isolate me, yes, in public," he said. Douda is being supported by Street Child, a British charity that is aiming to help 1,000 Ebola orphans. He is thankful for donations from overseas since his case first came to wider attention. I think it helps a lot. But as he scrolls through his mobile phone, showing me photos of his mother and father, it is clear that he, and others like him, need more as they face hardship for a generation. "I am thinking of selling this to get some money," he says. In the coming weeks, he faces eviction from his home. His rent of $380 for the year is overdue and, although part-way through his training as a lab technician, Douda doesn't have a job. His biological mother is still alive but, in a country where help is primarily measured in terms of money, she is of no assistance. Is she a support to him? "No, no, she is disabled," he says. He breaks down in tears when asked what will happen if he cannot find the rent. Well, I think we'd all end up on the street ... That's more burden to me, because I'd be like stress, worry to feed my younger ones, if such thing happens, it's really going to be bad for me. The stigma and lack of support for Ebola victims widens the crisis beyond a medical emergency. In Kenema, more than 100 survivors have formed a union for mutual support. The desire of survivors to help others is not uncommon. Will Pooley, the British nurse, who treated Douda and contracted the virus himself, is back on an Ebola ward in Freetown. So, too, is one of the hospital's former patients, Belkizu Alfred Koromo. A 20-year-old student nurse, she and her brother were admitted to the Connaught hospital last month. They survived, but they lost 17 members of their family including their mother and father. "It's not been really easy for us," she says. Now living with her aunt, she says joining the Ebola fight was the most natural thing to do. I thought I should not be at home doing nothing. I need to come and rescue some of my fellow Sierra Leoneans," she said. Her brother, a business student, is also going to work on an Ebola ward in a soon-to-be-opened isolation unit in the children's hospital in Freetown. Although not a qualified health worker, his presence will be invaluable, says Marta Lado, a Spanish infectious diseases consultant doctor in charge of the isolation ward at the Connaught. Some of our patients are small babies and you cannot have them in your arms all morning, so people that have less risk than the health workers are a great support to them. She and her brother can go inside and stay with the children. Over at Hastings hospital, Alu Kamara, 36, is waiting to be discharged. He too is joining the fight. A teacher, he contracted the disease from his brother who was misdiagnosed with typhoid and died. "I feel incredibly lucky," he says, peering over the temporary partition outside his ward. Asked how he is going to celebrate his brush with death, he waves his mobile and says he going to join the fight. I will go out there to sensitise people, help people stop getting Ebola.