 Conteh now found himself in the middle of a war zone , starving and homeless . He wandered about for several months and finally came to Kenema where he began treating the sick in the midst of the fighting . Although he had friends overseas , and could have procured a job outside Sierra Leone , he chose to stay and help his people because " they had no one to help them " . Due to the war , most experts familiar with Lassa fever had left the country , and patients suspected of having the disease began to be brought to Conteh for treatment . The Lassa team moved from Segbwema to the Kenema Government Hospital ( KGH ) . In Kenema , Conteh became director of the only Lassa fever isolation ward in the world . Rebels from the Revolutionary United Front took over the town of Kenema in 1997 and 1999 , but Conteh never left his post . It is thought that the rebels spared the hospital from destruction because they were afraid of catching Lassa fever . When the civil war ended in 2002 , the government of Sierra Leone began the process of rebuilding the country . 
