Ex-beauty queen and one-time screen goddess turned nurse, Regina Askia Williams has joined healthcare workers volunteering to tackle the deadly Ebola Virus Diseases in the United States.
The University of Lagos Biology graduate who during the 1990s and early 2000s featured in several Nollywood films and soap operas among them, Fortunes, shared on her facebook page her decision to join the male dominated healthcare worker volunteers in one of US Ebola Centres.
Her post: “My job was looking for Nurses to volunteer for the Ebola center which was moved from our building to another location. My male colleagues said they would do it for 200 dollars per hour, ….C’mon Regina , gotta get on the team…they said. I was not smiling (I am captain of my 3 kid team). Not one female nurse volunteered (lol). We ALL had to demonstrate proper use of PPE equipment and be proficient with the Ebola protocol. I was full of thoughts as I watched the display, hoods, masks, gowns, boots….almost like a nightmare. Home news had it that Nigerians washed their hands, didn’t hug as much, monitored their temps and on the first signs of malaise drank the ORT (oral rehydration therapy) until symptoms passed. Were we once again trying to kill mosquitoes with bazookas? I wasn’t going to wait to find out. In a daze I got with the program to become “an Ebola ready Nurse”. More power to all the nurses on the grind – Goodluck!!”
Ebola was brought into US on September 30, 2014, by a Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan who went into the country to marry his long-time fiancee.
A second case of Ebola virus disease was diagnosed on October 11 in a 
nurse, Nina Pham, who had provided care to Duncan at the hospital. Another nurse who treated Duncan, Amber Joy Vinson, became the third person diagnosed with the disease on October 14. Although hundreds of people have been tested or are being monitored for potential Ebola Virus infection, no other confirmed cases of locally transmitted infection have yet been reported in the United States.
A fourth case of Ebola virus disease was diagnosed on October 23 in New York City, physician Craig Spencer, who had just returned from working with Doctors Without Borders.
