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".

In October he sent a letter to the ABC from Sierra Leone, Where does one begin to describe the Ebola frontline?

Here is his second letter:

One week to go so my days in "Mama Salone" are coming to an end.

Probably the most humanitarian of my missions so far - the learning curve has been amazing - but the body bagging terrible.

It is without question a horrific death, the grimace on the face of the corpses as we body bag describe a pain beyond description.

For some reason the rigor mortis starts to set in within minutes; the medics have to straighten the body immediately otherwise it is hell trying to body bag the contortion of pain.

The body is highly contagious - we try to minimise our contact with it as we sterilise a lost life into a white plastic bag. The smaller the body bag the harder it is to fight back the tears and sometimes I just cry in my goggles.

An unprecedented psycho-social humanitarian disaster, a man standing in our discharge tent sobbing - his family lost, wives and mothers inconsolable as they scream in anguish, families are unable to comfort their dying kin. Whole villages in the forests are now found empty by the Red Cross burial teams returning the corpses home.

The fear on patients' faces is indescribable. They know they might not have long to live and look up and try to appeal to you as you clean the vomit from their bed.

I have met and worked with a whole bunch of incredibly talented people. The bravery and humanitarian concern of all my colleagues in trying to save lives is humbling.

Darwin humanitarian Dan Baschiera (left) plans to return to the region next year with his wife. ( Supplied: Dan Baschiera )

We are all under stress, some bury it in work, others in their own way, interestingly the digital age does help us all as we can connect with our loved ones - as I write this one of our doctors is "having a Skype" with his mum.

The wet season now finally seems to be petering out, but the Ebola cases increase. The sound of the ambulance sirens is a constant.

Day in, day out we work, donning the space suits and melting with sweat; the tears help to defog the goggles, the heat unbearable after an hour. You have to be controlled as you undress in the decontamination room - a mistake could be fatal.

Where is the true leadership in this world, I ask. I hear a lot of political talk but see very little walk. We desperately need medical boots on the ground. We have to fight this horror, not bury our heads in the sand.

Ebola is testing our humanity. Thankfully some countries and humanitarian NGOs are rising to the challenge, but no doubt others in the world will wait for a "convenient vaccine".

Who knows how long Sierra Leone can withstand the assault of this epidemic?

On the other hand, Ebola is doing unpredictable things: it plateaus in some places, and continues upwards in others; some people it kills, others recover - some of them from the brink.

A lot of it seems to be in sync with the viral load people are exposed to. I think the combination of good hydration, good food (mixed with "Plumpy nut" [a peanut-based paste for treatment of severe acute malnutrition]) and a sterile environment where we minimise patient risk of increasing viral load by rolling into their faeces and vomit, has given us a better cure/discharge to body bag rate.

But anything is possible with this virus.

There is an interesting case of a discharged patient being reinfected when returned to his home where exposure to further viral load probably collapsed an already weakened immune system.

Sierra Leone continues in the grip of poverty: increased begging for food, for jobs, a hundred or so mobbing the front gates when casual daily work is available (we were able to employ a whole village to help carry stones for our massive drainage system), the motor bikes are now ridden slowly (saving fuel).

I am now very tired physically and emotionally, it is time to leave before I make a mistake. I know I face stigmatisation on my return, but my garden should benefit from my 21 days in quarantine.

Next year my wife and I plan to return. I don't think Ebola will conveniently (read politically) go away.