Australian Dan Baschiera is volunteering at an Ebola treatment hospital in Sierra Leone where he is doing what he can to stop the deadly disease.

Mr Baschiera, a former Charles Darwin University lecturer in social work and humanitarian studies, has seen first hand the bravery of people risking their lives to battle an "invisible, unpredictable and highly contagious enemy".

He sent this letter to the ABC:

Where does one begin to describe the Ebola frontline?

Basically it is everywhere and affects everyone in one way or another. Fear is ever present as is the grief for those who have lost the battle with this invisible, unpredictable and highly contagious enemy.

I now find myself standing within this frontline helping run the water, sanitation, chlorine and hygiene management of what MSF call a Case Management Centre.

Here a team of very dedicated Sierra Leonian and MSF Expat staff are standing their ground and holding the Ebola back with this brand new infrastructure.

However the Bo region does not have it as bad as the capital cities and the rest of the Ebola zone. The community has in the past been vigilant in protecting itself but we can see the Ebola surging towards us. The weeks ahead are going to be hard - we know all about the horror stories.

So the frontline is also living in Sierra Leone - in an African bustling town. Where it rains every after noon after a sweltering midday.

Darwin humanitarian Dan Baschiera (left) trains a nurse from the Norwegian Red Cross in using a chlorination system in Sierra Leone. ( Supplied: Dan Baschiera )

I am essentially behind a chlorinated fortress as MSF prepares to do further battle with the onslaught of Ebola.

The work involves keeping the infrastructure operational and working with a team of very brave clinical and hygiene staff. We wear the space suits in the tropical heat, sterilising the high risk wards of confirmed patients, sterilising and respectfully body bagging the victims, and in general protecting the medics as much as we can. It is incredibly technical clinical work and amazing to find it here in a part of Africa still struggling to emerge from a terrible civil war.

I have also been appointed the program's training supervisor. MSF is a world leader in managing Ebola and so we are under pressure from international NGO's coming in to the Ebola zone to train them up and share safety knowledge and practice in virus management. The time I spent learning with my fellow students at Charles Darwin University is now helping to save lives.

Overall the CMC is a simple large structure but a large complex designed to fight the virus by managing the deaths in a respectfully sterile way yet giving the living victims all the nutrition support needed to help fight the virus and some time for their antibodies to kick in - their only chance at this time.

As one of my hygiene staff put it: "We are medical soldiers fighting an enemy we cannot see".

Medical staff take a blood sample from a suspected Ebola patient at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on July 10, 2014. ( Reuters )

I have the highest regard for our Sierra Leonian "medical soldiers" who see the Ebola as the enemy. We put on the difficult space suits and go into one of the most dangerous places on earth to help those suffering. The brave humanitarian work done by my colleagues is incalculable.

As a new centre in a low Ebola zone we are now in the process of coming up to speed.

While we have a 120-bed capacity the rotation of discharges and mortality at the moment leaves us an average of 30 beds active in the suspect - probable and confirmed risk sections.

The MSF team here come from all over. Sierra Leone of course, but with Italian, South African, South American, Dutch, Belgian, US and Canadian back ups - all hard working experts.

It is good to have a team like this and I feel confident that we can stand our ground against an "...enemy we cannot see".



We have a "no touch" policy so hand shaking does not happen - a little strange as handshakes were part of initiating communication when I was last here in 2004.

It's good being back doing real humanitarian work and I have great and learned support from my lovely wife Annie Whybourne.