Mass Hysteria: Worse than Ebola Virus Disease

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="story-featured-image" style="background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #333333; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-right: 15px; width: 208px;"> <span style="font-size: 12px; text-transform: uppercase;">BY ABIMBOLA ADELAKUN</span><img alt="VIEWPOINT Thursday, August 07, 2014" class="attachment-bigstoryimage" height="330" src="http://www.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/VIEWPOINT-Thursday-August-07-2014.jpg" style="background-color: whitesmoke; border: none; float: left; margin-right: 10px; padding: 4px;" width="200" /></div> <div id="nrelate_flyout_placeholder" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px;"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Mass hysteria has gripped many countries of the world over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Like all episodes of recent epidemics – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Avian Flu (H5N1), this outbreak has seen governments and the World Health Organisation devoting resources to finding a cure.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Meanwhile, African leaders luxuriate and gallivant round the world, seeking nothing of importance; yet, chewing the same old issues on the same weary gums. Was it Karma that led to the United States screening some of them for Ebola? Who knows! Before we deem the US overzealous, remember it is to this same US and its European allies that our leaders look up to for a cure for Ebola. Makes one wonder, why is Africa so blest?</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Is their quest in seeking a cure for Ebola informed by the contagious nature of the virus or they are genuinely concerned about their citizens for once? Despite all their panic about Ebola, we know that something greater -and worse- than Ebola invaded our shores long ago. Consequently, we die in our millions every year.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> The World Health Organisation data indicates that 90 per cent of malaria deaths are in the poorest countries and mortality is greater in children under age five; the same alarming statistics apply to pneumonia/respiratory diseases and also, HIV/AIDS. Those figures are higher than what Ebola has killed since it was discovered in 1976. In Nigeria, polio is still a serious problem and maternal mortality kills more women than Ebola has ever done, so why the fuss in only one direction?</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Let me state clearly that I acknowledge that Ebola is a terrible disease and is currently listed as one of the worst in the world. I am also aware that the rate of contraction is probably higher in poorer countries because poverty, filth and disease tend to walk together. In countries where people have no qualms about defecating in public spaces, spew phlegm, spittle and other body fluids without a care in the world, the rate of contagion might be higher.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Yet, there is something annoying about the moral panic Ebola has generated especially in the international media. It is almost as if every African is an Ebola vector and a grave risk to the world. From the look of things, the fear we contract from the sensationalism in the media will kill us faster than Ebola.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> From the Emirates airline’s indefinite suspension of its operations in Guinea to South Korea’s withdrawing the letter of invitation to three Nigerian students who were supposed to participate in a conference in their country to the loud protest by certain US politicians and citizens against flying home their citizens who were infected with the virus while doing missionary work in Africa, fear grips everyone. Some of the panics we are witnessing have the subtext of racism. Long-held prejudices against “diseased Africans” subtly creep up in the commentaries being deployed in addressing the Ebola scourge.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> In all the cacophony, some important facts are being overlooked.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> One is that Ebola needs not be a death sentence. The present outbreak has a 60 per cent mortality rate. Some past outbreak have had up to 90 per cent. However, its high mortality rate should not obscure the important fact that with adequate medical care – proper nutrition and replacing body fluids- the body can be enabled to buy time to be able to fight the disease back. There is a higher chance of survival if the infection is diagnosed early.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> I think that is one aspect of Ebola that needs to be highlighted in all the public health messages that are being passed around. If the detection of the disease is consistently presented as more or less a death sentence, it will be counterproductive as infected people are likely to be discouraged from reporting to health care institutions. They will rather stay at home and die without the indignity of stigmatisation.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Two is that Ebola presents another chance for Africa to improve on its health care facilities. It is no coincidence that the places where Ebola is ravaging -Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia- are also one of the most wretched countries of the world where healthcare is pathetic. Various health care professionals that have been interviewed have stated over and over that they could have done far much more if they had adequate resources to work with. In terms of health care, African leaders have simply not done enough and that is why in Nigeria, our leaders will rather die in better hospitals abroad than be seen in ours.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> It is also important we invest in research and development. Outbreaks like Ebola tend to reveal our underbelly – that as a continent, we merely string things along until the white man comes to solve our problems. That is why I find the observation of the president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, Prof. John Ashton – that Ebola cure has not been found because it affects “powerless minorities” though patronising, but also a reflection of reality.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> For most of Africa, we live in an environment where our wildlife has neither been sufficiently understood nor documented. There are other species out there carrying another zoonotic disease that could be worse than Ebola. We need not wait till it comes to us; we have the larger responsibility to educate ourselves ahead.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Three is the conspiracy theory that an outbreak of disease like this stimulates. For years, diseases from HIV/AIDS to Ebola have been peddled as a western conspiracy to decimate African populations. This curdled logic has taken root so much that it is partly responsible for the persistence of polio in Nigeria.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> The resulting paranoia is an addendum to the Ashton attitude; the beneficiary mentality of some Africans who think that a disease should affect “Oyinbo” population just as it affects them so the former can find a cure.</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Like malaria, we are the primary victims of the problem and the higher responsibility to research the cure lies with us more than it lies with the white man. That is why our leaders should take a break from stealing public funds and begin to consider how we, as a people, will not be swept into extinction by our own undoing</div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify;"> Now that the condition of the two US citizens who were infected are said to be improving based on some experimental drug that has been developed but previously untested on human beings, it should be obvious that what kills us in Africa is far much more than Ebola. It is good we make some noise about it and try our best to curtail the spread of the disease but that, by no means, should be the end.</div> </div> </div>

Mass Hysteria: Worse than Ebola Virus Disease

BY ABIMBOLA ADELAKUN Mass hysteria has gripped many countries of the world over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Like all episodes of...

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