Ebola survivors are sharing their stories and health tips for others on a new app for the #ISurvivedEbola campaign.

The app was launched in early December, but the first message wasn't shared until Monday. It's only accessible on smartphones given to 30 Ebola survivors from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

The posts are available for viewing through the campaign's website, ISurvivedEbola.org.

Fanta Oulen Camara had never heard of the Ebola virus until her sick cousin came to her house for her and her family to take care of. She shared her story through the app, explaining how her family of nine became a family of three because of the virus.

Today, Camara is providing psychosocial support to fellow Ebola victims in a nearby treatment center.
"I tell them that I used to be sick too, that I lost parents just like they did, she said." "But I didn't give up because of that. I kept fighting."

Camara's story is very real and it mirrors the lives of the thousands of people who fell ill to the Ebola virus in West Africa. In the World Health Organization's latest situation report Wednesday, 20,712 people were diagnosed with the virus during the epidemic and 8,220 died.
"When the Ebola crisis hit...we believed that we had something to offer in tackling Ebola. When we began to do our deep research, we realized there was one particular asset that was being underutilized, and that was the power of actual survivors," Sean Southey, CEO of PCI Media Impact, the New York-based nongovernmetnal organization behind the campaign, said to News Week.
The #ISurvivedEbola campaign finally gives a voice to the survivors. Southey said this is important because there is very little research on "how they've survived, why they've survived and what they're doing with their lives."
Aminata Kargbo, another Ebola survivor from West Africa participating in the campaign, talks about her experience with the virus that took the lives of four members of her family of eight. Her pregnant mother contracted the virus from her before she died.

Kargbo said the doctors at the Ebola treatment center were very sensitive and caring during her recovery, encouraging her to eat and conversing with her.

Kargbo is a strong-willed woman and said she knew she was going to survive. She knew that because of her early treatment.

The #ISurvivedEbola app isn't the first designed to help with the Ebola epidemic.

FEMA launched an app with an interactive emergency checklist that allows users to add photos of disasters to a public map in August. Facebook also created an app in October, called Safety Check, which allows people near the site of a natural disaster let friends and family know they're okay.

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