Dr. Fred Hartman, an infectious disease expert for Boston-based global health organization Management Sciences for Health, was sent to the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak Oct. 9 as part of a project that, if funded by the government, will open several community care centers in Liberia.

As the nonprofit awaits a response to a funding request submitted yesterday to the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance — about $5 million for the first six months — Hartman is making his way through some of the hardest-hit areas, meeting with health officials, visiting treatment centers, and talking to those infected with the deadly disease.

Here is his account from Monrovia, as told to the Herald’s Lindsay Kalter:

“It’s sort of a paradox. You no longer see people dying in the streets. I haven’t seen a single dead body in the streets. The riots have calmed down. There isn’t the panic there was at the beginning, but the cases continue to rise. The paradox is that everything on the surface feels normal, but in the neighborhoods this infection is still blazing away and people are still dying of it.

“It appears to me from afar that the hysteria is peaking in the United States right now, but here in Liberia, this has been going on for six months or so. People aren’t as fearful or emotional about it. I think they’re more sad than anything about it. Some of the government officials I’ve met with just seem terribly depressed, because they feel responsible for these deaths.

“It’s a new norm. By nature, Liberians are ebullient people. They like to laugh and hug and shake hands and touch. But there’s not as much laughter, and there’s no shaking hands. And there’s certainly no hugging.

“Everywhere you go, you have to wash your hands and disinfect your feet. At some of the larger buildings, they take your temperature. That’s the way business is conducted now. There aren’t many people going out and doing things like shopping or visiting restaurants. People just don’t want to be exposed to others.

“You can’t control the disease until you detect and isolate every single case. That’s why we’re opening up these centers.

“An Ebola treatment center that we just visited was in Bomi County, built earlier this year by the local hospital. It’s just cinder blocks and a tin roof. It’s surrounded by a wooden fence. The fence is maybe 4 feet high. When you stand outside the fence, you can look in and see the treatment center and the people, sometimes sitting in the shade to cool down. The tin roof housing must be pretty hot in the Liberian sun.

“The patients are very sick. It’s a very painful disease. It can bring people to their knees with violent vomiting and diarrhea. I would say they are depressed for sure, but there also is a profound belief that God will carry them through.

“We’re opening community care centers so that patients with a fever and who are presenting with symptoms can go to a smaller treatment unit close by, instead of going to some of the larger centers farther away. We believe a lot of people are still staying at home. They see the treatment units as a place you go to die.

“Even people who look to me like they’re going to die — and of course I’m not really close to them because we’re separated by a fence — they’ll still say this is God’s will. There is a sense of hope in the midst of all of this guided by their faith that Liberia will prevail.”