The Ebola outbreak that ravaged three nations in West Africa might have been even worse if it weren't for the bravery of Red Cross civilian volunteers who dealt with one of the most dangerous jobs.

A new study published in the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal says that Red Cross teams who helped bury most of the bodies of deceased Ebola patients could have stopped more than 10,000 cases from being added to the deadly epidemic.  From the beginning in 2014 until the last country was declared Ebola-free in 2016, more than 28,000 people were infected - 11,310 died.

One of the reasons for the rapid spread was local burial customs which involved family members and other loved ones handling and washing the body of the deceased.  This put people into contact with the bodily fluids of Ebola victims, the primary route of infection from patient to patient.  Within months, the number of patients went from a few, to dozens, to hundreds, to thousands.

Hundreds of ordinary people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone heeded the call to step up.  Signing on with the Red Cross, they donned protective gear and took on the grim task of collecting the toxic bodies for burial.  They also had to deal with grieving family members and face being ostracized from their own communities out of fear and a lack of information about the disease.

Focusing on 45 community funerals, the researchers determined that at least two people per funeral became infected with Ebola before the Red Cross workers interceded.  Extrapolating, the authors determined that if the Red Cross Volunteers prevented between 1,411 and 10,452 cases of Ebola by quickly burying the bodies instead of allowing them to be handled in the traditional manner.