When Ebola turns into the Lord of the Flies MAIN PICTURE: Doctors Without Borders staff members carry the body of a person killed by viral haemorrhagic fever at a centre for victims of the Ebola virus in Gueckedou, Guinea, on April 1, 2014. INSET: Patrick Sawyer, who died on July 25 in Nigeria after taking an international flight en route to Minnesota, USA, where was visiting his family. - crisisforums.org
MAIN PICTURE:  Doctors Without Borders staff members carry the body of a person killed by viral haemorrhagic fever at a centre for victims of the Ebola virus in Gueckedou, Guinea, on April 1, 2014. INSET:  Patrick Sawyer, who died on July 25 in Nigeria after taking an international flight en route to Minnesota, USA, where was visiting his family.  -  crisisforums.org

MAIN PICTURE: Doctors Without Borders staff members carry the body of a person killed by viral haemorrhagic fever at a centre for victims of the Ebola virus in Gueckedou, Guinea, on April 1, 2014. INSET: Patrick Sawyer, who died on July 25 in Nigeria after taking an international flight en route to Minnesota, USA, where he was visiting his family. – crisisforums.org

Hildegarde The Arena

If health experts predict that it might take six months to contain the virus, only God knows what will have happened to people not only in West Africa, but the world over.

Shona-speaking people have two idioms regarding the dead and death: “Seri kweguva hakuna munamato” and “Wafa wanaka”. It’s a way of teaching values about a heavy matter by discouraging people from speaking ill of the dead.

But it doesn’t seem to be a universal trait inasfar as Africa is concerned where there are many common cultural traits.
We are in the middle of an epidemic of unimaginable proportions, an epidemic that has killed more than 1 500 people mostly in the West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. The numbers keep rising with each passing day. It’s a virus that is also claiming the lives of health care workers who would have come into contact with affected people. To date, 120 nurses and doctors have died, considering that the first reported cases in Guinea was about five months ago.

Although my knowledge of Ebola or the Marburg virus dates back to 1995 when I compiled research materials for some scientists, I am not qualified to speak on the clinical aspects of the virus.

I leave that to experts and also refer readers to the World Health Organisation, Centre for Disease Control websites and other authoritative sources that have continual updates on the issue. The Internet has an information glut on Ebola, but it is important to cross-check that information with the references given. Misinforming people through social media will not help the situation.

My brief is on the social aspects and how we should collectively confront this monster virus at personal, family, community, regional, continental and global levels. How well informed are people? How well trained are healthcare givers and how well equipped are the quarantine centres? How much is fear playing into people’s actions to the deadly virus?

We have traversed this road before with the HIV and Aids virus? What lessons have we learnt in the past three decades, lessons that we can use to not only contain the spread of the Ebola virus disease, but to ensure that issues like mistrust, stigma, stereotyping and xenophobia do not hamper the care and treatment of affected people?
I say this because just like HIV and Aids in the early years before the anti-retroviral treatment was available to large numbers of infected people, the deadly Ebola virus is already bringing out the best and worst in people.

The name Patrick Sawyer might not mean much to most readers, but for those tracking the ravages of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa, this is a dead man some living people are flogging.

Some of our Nigerian brothers and sisters are extremely angry with Sawyer, a Liberian/American citizen who contracted the virus from his sister, travelled from Liberia to Nigeria “knowing” that he had been exposed to EVD and affected four health personnel who have since died.

Below are some excerpts of some of the pieces on Patrick Sawyer and issues regarding the Ebola virus, for example contact tracing of infected people and the importance of being truthful when faced with a life and death tragedy like Ebola:

BellaNaija.com, just like other sites found on the Internet, reports that First Consultant Hospital where Sawyer was initially treated claim that “Patrick Sawyer denied having contact with anyone that had Ebola”.

“First Consultant Hospital, the facility in Lagos that treated Ebola victim  Patrick Sawyer, has released a statement detailing what happened while he was being treated. The statement, as reported by Punch, reveals that Sawyer denied having contact with anyone who had Ebola Virus:

“A 40-year-old gentleman came into the hospital with symptoms suggestive of malaria (fever, headache, extreme weakness) on Sunday, July 20, 2014. He was fully conscious and gave us his clinical history and told us he is a senior diplomat from Liberia. Laboratory investigations confirmed malaria whilst other tests for HIV, Hepatitis B&C were negative. He was admitted and treatment commenced.

“However, due to the fact that he was not responding to treatment but rather was developing haemorrhagic symptoms we further questioned him. He denied having been in contact with any persons with EVD at home, in any hospital or at any burial…

“We refused for him to be let out of the hospital in spite of intense pressure, as we were told that he was a senior ECOWAS official and had an important role to play at the ECOWAS convention in Calabar, Cross River State . . . The initial test results from LUTH laboratory indicated a signal of possible Ebola virus, but required confirmation . . . Working jointly with the State, federal agencies and international agencies, we were able to obtain confirmation of Ebola (Zaire strain), (WHO Regional Centre Lab-Senegal/Redeemes lab/LUTH Laboratory). He afterwards died on July 25, 2014 at about 6.50am.”

However, it was Femi Fani-Kayode’s opinion piece that made us wonder whether Africa will make progress if it becomes too angry about a problem where little is known, and lasting solutions are far from being found.

Writing in the Nigerian Monitor, Fani-Kayode says: “I disagree with those that have described Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian/American that single-handedly brought the deadly Ebola virus into our shores, as a madman. He was not mad at all but just evil.

“He was a man that was on a mission. That mission was to spread the Ebola virus to Nigeria and to infect and kill as many people as possible with it. He was an evil man with an evil intention and purpose.

“Worst still, he was not working alone. Some people and I mean rich, powerful and well-connected people were working with him. As a matter of fact, they sent him on the mission. They cultivated him, took care of him, paid him, brainwashed him, and gave him all that he wanted in life and finally asked him to go on a suicide mission to destroy the lives of others and spread the deadly disease.

“This was a clear case of bio-terrorism and Sawyer was simply a pawn in a bigger game and a wider picture. The motive of those who sent him was to spread fear and panic, to kill as many people as possible, to create a need for a solution to the problem, to prepare the ground for a new wonder drug that could cure Ebola, to create a massive market for that drug and to ensure that there would be massive profits from its sale.

“As usual, it is the unbelieving, unprepared, undiscerning and naive Africans that have been used as the prime guinea pigs in this satanic venture. When will they stop destroying us and treating us with such contempt? When will they begin to see and treat us as human beings?

“I guess the answer to that is when we cultivate the courage to stand up and say ‘no more’ and when we have the good fortune of being blessed with a ruling elite and a political class that truly cares and that is incisive, insightful, properly educated, enlightened and historically literate…”

This becomes a case of a virus turning itself into the Lord of the Flies because there are more articles like this with people venting out their anger against Sawyer.
These are understandable emotions because even the WHO personnel have not been spared by Ebola. American and British doctors as well. Schools in Nigeria will not reopen next Monday because of the fear of Ebola.

If health experts predict that it might take six months to contain the virus, only God knows what will have happened to people not only in West Africa, but the world over.

Economies are at risk as each country is taking radical measures to try and keep out the virus. Peace and security, including regional co-operation and integration are at risk.

Eventually our brothers and sisters in West Africa will learn how to manage the anger. Liberia, which is hardest hit, is already making great strides although they are still a long way.

Maybe like Uganda during the early years of the HIV and Aids pandemic, this region will provide an African model on managing delicate crises like Ebola.

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