Marie Claire Tchecola

The first woman to be educated in her family, Marie Claire Tchecola grew up in a small Guinean village near the border with Senegal. Ms. Tchecola could have been a doctor, but she chose nursing —in her own words—”because you can touch more people.” Only doctors at Guinea’s largest hospital were supplied gloves, so it was precisely Ms. Tchecola’s passion for touching, nurturing, and caring that exposed her to the Ebola Virus Disease while treating a patient at Conakry’s Donka Hospital in July 2014. At the time, transmission was not widespread in the capital, and one of the insidious traits of Ebola is that its early symptoms mimic that of other diseases common in Guinea. Once Ms. Tchecola identified her own symptoms, however, she quickly checked herself into a treatment center, stopping the chain of transmission, and saving her co-workers, friends, and family from infection. Battling fear and stigma over Ebola, including being forced by her landlord to leave her own home, Ms. Tchecola returned to her work caring for the sick as an emergency room nurse at Donka Hospital. She is an active member of the Ebola Survivors Association of Guinea, committed to speaking out publicly about Ebola to spread awareness about the disease and to fight stigmatization against survivors.