(NEWS) Ebola Burial Team In Liberia (PHOTOS)

Kieran Kesner is a photographer who was in Liberia documenting the Ebola outbreak from Aug. 27 to Sept. 4. During his time there, he was able to shadow an Ebola burial team in Unification Town, Liberia. "This is most certainly not desired work but these men, like many others, are forced to work daily in life-threatening situations in an effort to contain the Ebola outbreak," Kesner told The Huffington Post. "These men firmly believe that they have a responsibility to do this work to protect their family, loved ones and greater country." Kesner shared some of his images with HuffPost and also explained what he learned about what it's like to be in this line of work during the world's worst Ebola outbreak.

Note: Some readers may find the following images disturbing.

 The men sitting on this bench are all members of the burial team in Unification Town, Liberia. I had arranged to visit with them on Aug. 30 to understand the story behind the masks of the men in charge of both removing and burying bodies killed by Ebola. They were all sitting on the bench waiting for a body bag to be delivered, an essential piece of equipment, which, at the time, was in severe shortage in Liberia.

 Members of the Ebola burial team push-start their car to go pick up a body. In the trunk of the car is chlorine spray and other PPE [personal protective equipment]. This car is used to transport the team, their PPE and their equipment. However, the empty minivan they used to transport the bodies also needed to be jump-started before going to pick up the body.

 This is the standard PPE I saw the burial team utilize. The minimum gear to function at their job includes full-body suits, latex gloves, rubber gloves, face mask, rubber boots, goggles, a second protective hood under the suit and an apron. All open seams, like where the suit meets the gloves, are sealed with duct tape. The team is not cleared to retrieve Ebola-infected bodies if even a single piece of this equipment is missing.

 An Ebola body-removal team member sprays the doorknob with a heavy concentrate of chlorine before entering to remove the body of a woman killed by Ebola. At this point in Liberia, every case is treated with the same precautions. Although Ebola had not yet been confirmed at this point in time, this woman clearly died of Ebola-related symptoms and was the fifth member of her church to die that week. The standard procedure for entering a building with Ebola is for one person to disinfect the entrance and surrounding surfaces with a highly concentrated batch of chlorine before the other members of the team enter.

 Nothing is common and nothing is standard since the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa earlier this year. This burial team is in a relatively remote part of Liberia so they were not only in charge of retrieving the body, but responsible for burying it as well. In more urban parts of the country like Monrovia, it is now standard practice to burn the bodies.