Ebola: Not yet the death sentence

She coughed and then muttered, “Bola”. Pandemonium. The first patient to bolt out of the door was an HIV-positive man who thought he had heard “Ebola”. Apparently Ebola is supposed to be deadlier than Aids.Since the Ebola disease flew business class into Nigeria, things have not been the same again. Lifestyles and modes of worship […]

She coughed and then muttered, “Bola”. Pandemonium. The first patient to bolt out of the door was an HIV-positive man who thought he had heard “Ebola”. Apparently Ebola is supposed to be deadlier than Aids.
Since the Ebola disease flew business class into Nigeria, things have not been the same again. Lifestyles and modes of worship have been affected. Now people refrain from shaking hands or embracing. In the Catholic Church where the sharing of Christ’s peace via handshake with fellow worshippers is part of the Mass, worshippers have now been advised that handshakes are under suspension until further notice while communion would now be given by hand to avoid transferring the disease from one person to others.
In Ore, Ondo State, which is a favourite stopover point for travellers on the East-West route, restauranteurs can no longer sell their stock of ‘Fine Boy’ as monkey meat is called. Patrons of ‘404’ (dog meat) have also given their delicacy a wide birth. Even the common bush meat (antelope, grass-cutter etc) are no longer sought after. Anything more exotic than the plain honest-to-God beef, chicken or fish is avoided like the plague.
When the first death was reported in Lagos panic set in for a lot of people despite the commendably efficient way the Lagos State Government handled the matter. The remains of the victim, Patrick Sawyer, were promptly cremated to prevent further contamination but even then several people who had had contact with him on his arrival in Nigeria had already been infected. So far, only one person, a Nigerian nurse, is known to have died as a result of contact with Dr Sawyer.
Nigerians were befud-dled at the initial stage. What manner of ailment was this new scourge that snuffed life out of its victims within a matter of days? Rumours of salt and bitter kola being the antidote to the disease made some Nigerians go to ridiculous extremes. Some bathed with salty (sodium chloride) water; many gorged bitter kola till they required medical attention. For one or two days in Lagos, bitter kola became scarce.
These are trying times in Nigeria. With Boko Haram on an unrelenting killing spree in several northern states, kidnapping and oil theft in the eastern/south-south states and now Ebola sneaking in through the country’s economic nerve centre, Lagos, there is a sense in which apocalyptic pronouncements by various ‘men of God’ seem to sound credible.
But there is nothing mys-terious about Ebola. In 1976, the disease (named after the Ebola River in Zaire) first surfaced in Sudan and Zaire. Ebola-Sudan infected about 284 people, half of whom died. Some months later, Ebola-Zaire emerged from Yambuku, infecting 318 people and killing 88 per cent of that number. There is a third strain called Ebola Reston, first identified in 1989 when infected monkeys were imported into Reston, Virginia, from Mindanao in the Philippines. Then there is also a strain known as Ebola Cote d’Ivoire which was discovered in 1994 when a female ethologist accidentally infected herself in Cote d’Ivoire during necropsy on a chimpanzee from the Tai Forest. The fifth strain is the Taï Forest Ebola virus.
To date, there is no Nigerian Ebola. What we have are cases of Nigerians infected by sufferers from outside. For once, the federal and state governments are joining hands to streamline their battle plans. There is a lot of advocacy that still needs to be done to reduce the needless panic among the population through dissemination of appropriate information on the disease. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals.
In Africa, infection has been documented through the handling of infected chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest. Ebola then spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids.
Public service announce-ments have to stress this and also encourage people to maintain good hygienic practices such as regular hand washing. I was impres-sed that the Lagos State Government took the trouble to visit churches and mosques, especially the miracle-vending prayer houses which claim to have the capacity to cure any ailment. The last thing we need in our current circumstances is allowing the opium of religion to fool the people into lowering their guard. The truth is that if a pastor dares Ebola, he will end up in the morgue.
The Ebola disease has added another hurdle for travellers. When screening was introduced at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos, a colleague wondered if we won’t abuse the new system as is our wont. Imagine if an official at the screening point insists on a bribe before giving you a clean bill of health – what would you do? Refuse to pay the bribe and be quarantined as an Ebola victim?
Gallows humour has grown wings in real life and on the internet on account of Ebola. As they say, you gotta laugh to cry. But as far as I am concerned, this, too, shall pass.

The people win in Osun

In spite of doomsday predictions that the last gubernatorial election in Osun would lead to civil strife and mayhem, the contest has been won and lost with the limbs of the citizens intact. On Sunday morning when the returning officer was announcing the results, I looked out of my window to check if anything had changed. The sun still rose from the east and would unfailingly set in the West.
I congratulate INEC for doing a good job even if one must also remind the electoral umpire that conducting an election in one state with all the federal apparatus at beck and call is cheesecake compared to a nationwide exercise as we will soon have in 2015. Can INEC achieve the level of success it recorded in Osun on a national scale? Mr Aregbesola has the mandate of the people for another four years. But the real winners in Osun are the people who trooped out to exercise their franchise.