Emmy winner 'Outbreak' from Frontline on PBS

I wrote that I'd post more about other Emmy News and Documentary winners at the end of Emmy Award winner 'Rise of Animals'.  After giving my readers a rain check at the start of How 'Star Trek' shaped the present and future, it's time to redeem it.

Today, I'm looking at Frontline's "Outbreak," which won the award for Outstanding Coverage of a Current News Story – Long Form, one of seven awards earned by Frontline last week.  It covered the Ebola epidemic of 2014 in west Africa, which I wrote about extensively at the time.  I begin with the trailer.

The vivid, inside story of how the recent Ebola outbreak began and why it wasn’t stopped before it was too late. FRONTLINE's upcoming documentary "Outbreak" exposes tragic missteps in the response to the epidemic.

Follow over the jump for clips from each of the most affected countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

First, Inside Guinea's Troubled Early Response to Ebola.

In March of 2014, the mysterious and deadly disease that had been spreading in Guinea's forest region was officially confirmed as Ebola. But as FRONTLINE reveals, Guinea's government, the World Health Organization, and Doctors Without Borders were at odds about the scale of response that was necessary.

Next, The Hidden Ebola Outbreak in Sierra Leone.

New York Times reporter, Sheri Fink recounts her discovery that Sierra Leone's outbreak started much earlier than the official story suggests.

Finally, watch as an Angry Mob Descends on Ebola Patient.

"It was like watching a Zombie movie." An emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders describes in vivid detail the moment an angry mob goes after a man in West Africa who they believe is infected with Ebola. This is what it looked like on the ground before the world was paying attention to the outbreak.

"Like watching a Zombie movie"--or "Fear the Walking Dead," the first season of which depicts the onset of the zombie plague.  The official fictional response didn't help matters, nor did the crowd reaction.  Now my readers can understand why I pay attention to fiction about the zombie apocalypse; we aren't getting zombies, but sometimes life imitates art and we can learn from it.  At least in the case of Ebola, the threat can be contained--for now.