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  • Ebola virus: Doctor, two others taken into isolation

    Ebola virus: Doctor, two others taken into isolation

    50 on high risk

    60 on contact list ‘can’t be traced’

    Three people – a doctor, a pharmacist and another person – among those who had primary contact with the late Dr. Ikechukwu Sam Enemuo, the first Ebola victim in Rivers State, have been quarantined after showing symptoms of the virus.

    The results of their tests are, however, still being awaited. The late doctor Emenuo’s widow, who has tested positive to the virus, is receiving treatment in Lagos.

    Rivers State Commissioner for Health Dr. Sampson Parker broke the news yesterday in an update on the outbreak of Ebola in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s major oil hub and the second city after Lagos to be hit by the virus in Nigeria.

    The late Dr. Enemuo contracted the virus and died on August 22 in Port Harcourt. He became the sixth Nigerian to die of the virus after secretly treating a Nigerian official of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mr. Oluibukun Koye, in a hotel in Port Harcourt.

    Koye, who contracted Ebola after having primary contact with the Index case in Nigeria Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, escaped from quarantine in Lagos to Port Harcourt where he was treated by Dr. Enemuo.

    While Koye is free of the virus, Dr. Enemuo, Chief Medical Director of Samsteel Hospital in Rumuokoro, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, died of the virus.

    He was the third medical doctor to die of the virus.

    The commissioner said the doctor and pharmacist started managing Enemuo’s case at his hospital, before he was moved to Good Hart Hospital, where he died.

    Also moved to the quarantine centre, according to the commissioner, is a patient who was on admission at the Good Hart Hospital where Enemuo was admitted until he died. Results of their samples were being awaited.

    The commissioner said 50 among the 200 people on the contact tracing list are classified to be high risk while 60 of them could not be reached even on the telephone. Some of them, he said, are people who had direct contact with Dr. Enemuo at his hospital after he contracted the virus.

    Parker announced other measures taken by the Rivers State Government to include:  banning movement of bodies within and outside the state, bagging of Dr. Enemuo’s body and decontaminating the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital morgue and the attendants placed under watch; a meeting by Governor Chibuike Amaechi with religious leaders today and traditional rulers tomorrow, to sensitise them and mobilise them on how to educate their followers and subjects on the virus.

    The commissioner assured residents of the governments’ readiness to fight the disease in collaboration with the Federal Government’s Ebola Emergency Response team and international agencies and NGOs, including, WHO and Doctors Without Border (MSF).

    He warned against unnecessary body contacts and indiscriminate laying of hands on people by religious leaders.

    Parker said: “Anyone that had any form of contact with the late Dr. Enemuo should please come up; Ebola is curable if diagnosed early, people have survived it and more people will. So, there is no need to run away.

    “It is important that churches close their secret admission wards in their various places of worship. Some of them are running into churches and pastors are laying hands on them, it is wrong even on their and family’s health.

    “Movement of bodies within and outside the state must be supervised. Death certificates must be produced to ascertain the cause of death and the state Ministry of Health must give approval before a body is allowed to move.

    “The UPTH morgue has been decontaminated. However all the bodies there must be buried under supervision, especially those that were there at the same time with Dr. Enemuo’s.”

    Parker said Dr. Enemuo’s body had been bagged and the morgue decontaminated while the attendants have been placed under watch.

    Also decontaminated are the hospitals in which the late Enemuo was treated, the Mandate Garden Hotel, Rumudamanya, where he treated his patient, Koye and his residence. Parker said the places are now safe for access by people, but the hospitals are not yet receiving patients.

  • Containing Ebola virus in Abuja

    That the news of the outbreak of the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) has left Nigerians reeling with palpable hysteria and unfathomable fear is no longer contestable. And that the situation has gotten so bad that people now fear to freely interact with their relatives and friends, especially in affected states, is equally a reality. What is however a matter of contention is whether Nigeria posses the ability nay wherewithal to contain the viral spread of the deadly virus.

    According to medical experts, symptoms of EVD are Malaria-like, including fever, weakness of the joints, vomiting, severe abdominal pains, bleeding from the mouth, nose and ear, and an outbreak of noxious skin rashes and eventual death in a week or two.

    The dreaded EVD was first detected in 1976 in Nzara, Sudan and Yambuku village around the Ebola River area of Congo Democratic Republic. After subsidizing for a while, it suddenly re-appeared early this year in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and now Nigeria. The disease kills almost 90 percent of its victims.

    The hoopla that accompanied the outbreak of EVD was so paralyzing that the media was replete with stories of Nigerians taking bath with water spiced with salt and even consuming large quantities of it, a development that led to the death of those unfortunate Nigerians.

    Because there is no known cure so far and all drugs developed to treat the dreaded scourge remain merely experimental, efforts have largely been focused on prevention as a veritable means of curtailing its spread.

    This explains why the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) under the leadership of Senator Bala Mohammed recently constituted a high-powered technical committee to manage and curtail its threat in the territory.

    It is also probably in the light of this reality that the minister, while inaugurating the committee made it clear that the measure was a proactive one, stressing that the committee would have the responsibilities of working out modalities for responding to the threat of the Ebola virus; create awareness on the nature and symptoms of the virus, to proactively prepare an action plan for its containment; work out ways for effective surveillance of the population, visitors and travellers and to recommend tools and methods for managing cases if they arise among others.

    To further give a boost to the fight against this hair-splitting monster that has virtually raised everybody’s antenna, in a manner of speaking, the minister restated the decision of the government to designate and isolate a ward at Kuje General Hospital for management of possible victims of Ebola fever, just as he allayed the concerns raised by some residents of the town over the choice of Kuje General Hospital as the centre for the management of victims, stressing that all precautionary measures had been put in place to ensure that the designation of the ward would not endanger the health of medical staff and other workers at the hospital as well as residents of Kuje.

    As it is, the real challenge of this raging health issue lies in government’s ability to overhaul our health delivery and preventive systems. It is the opinion of a high preponderance of Nigerians that considering the nation’s enormous wealth, every part of Nigeria, including the nation’s capital city of Abuja should have first class medical facilities whose impact on the citizenry is overwhelmingly comprehensive and embracing.

    Be that as it may, even in the face of the intimidating challenges posed by this threat, the measures taken so far by the FCTA is encouraging and raises the hope of residents about the capacity of the authorities to give the deadly virus a bloody nose.

    If the FCTA hopes to clinically execute its war against this virus, it must embark on massive public awareness campaigns in both English and major Nigerian languages in both electronic and print media with a view to sensitizing residents on the dangers posed by the virus and how to avoid contacting it.

    In the same vein, it must commence immediate collaboration with federal authorities in the areas of procuring drugs and equipment that are highly critical in containing the virus.

    Deliberate efforts should be intensified towards continuously soliciting the cooperation of traditional rulers and youths in the FCT to ensure that government’s well-intentioned measures in this respect are not undermined.

    And considering the critical nature of this current health challenge, it is a welcome development that the federal government has ordered that passengers be screened at the airports. In addition, as part of its proactive approach to combating the virus, the federal government had requested for the experimental drug, ZMapp, from the US Centre for Disease Control. Even though Uncle Sam turned down the request, the Japanese government has volunteered to make an alternative available.

    Commendable as the action of the federal and the FCT administration towards containing the virus is, the point must be stressed that EVD still remains potently deadly, irrespective of the stories making the rounds that some victims receiving treatments have been certified okay and discharged from hospitals.

    For now, it is advisable that Nigerians maintain basic hygiene procedures more than ever before like washing of hands more often; washing of fruits with a bit of salt; avoid overcrowded places and body contact. Above all, they should avoid indiscriminate hugging and kissing.

     

    •Ochela is an Abuja- based media consultant

  • Ebola Virus …Win some, lose some

    Ebola Virus …Win some, lose some

    A Liberian doctor was confirmed dead despite being treated with experimental drug ZMapp. Before the Liberian’s death, a Spanish woman treated with the same drug also died. But, two Americans who received the same treatment are alive and Ebola-free. This development has raised the poser on whether or not ZMapp has anything to do with the recovery of the Americans, writes OLUKOREDE YISHAU

    One of three African doctors infected with Ebola and treated with the experimental drug ZMapp in Liberia is dead. Liberia’s Information Minister Lewis Brown confirmed yesterday that Dr. Abraham Borbor lost the battle against Ebola.

    Last week, Liberia said ZMapp appeared to be helping three Liberian health care workers who were given the experimental drug. They had shown “very positive signs of recovery,” the Liberian Ministry of Health said. Medical professionals treating the workers called their progress “remarkable.”

    Borbor’s case, according to Brown, worsened yesterday. He was the Deputy Chief Medical Director at the John F. Kenedy Medical Centre, Monrovia.

    Before the Liberian’s death, a Spanish priest who was also treated with ZMapp died. The Ebola drug was flown to Spain to give to the priest named Miguel Pajares, who had contracted the virus in Liberia.

    Borbor’s death coincides with the beginning of treatment on a Briton who contracted the disease in Sierra Leone. Doctors at a hospital in north-west London are treating William Pooley, a 29-year-old volunteer nurse.

    Pooley was flown to RAF Northolt in a specially equipped military aircraft on Sunday and taken under police escort to Hampstead’s Royal Free Hospital.

    He volunteered to go to West Africa to care for victims of the Ebola outbreak which has killed almost 1,500 people.

    It is the first confirmed case of a Briton contracting the virus during the current outbreak.

    Pooley, believed to be from Woodbridge in Suffolk, was flown out of Sierra Leone’s main airport in Lungi, in a RAF C-17 transport aircraft.

    If Pooley survives, he will be the third to have survived the deadly disease after receiving doses of ZMapp.

    The first two are two American missionaries, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol. They were infected with the deadly Ebola virus and flown separately from Liberia to Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital – becoming the first human patients with Ebola to ever come to the United States.

    Writebol was released from the hospital last Tuesday. Brantly walked out of the same hospital with no signs of the virus in his system the next day.Their recoveries seem to offer hope for those fighting the largest Ebola outbreak in known history. More than 2,400 people have been infected by the virus, according to the World Health Organisation, and it’s killed more than half.

    They were given ZMapp, which is not an approved treatment for Ebola. There is no approved treatment yet.

    For Ebola patients to leave isolation, two blood tests had to come back negative for the Ebola virus. Their bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat and feces, should no longer be infectious before they are let out of isolation.

    According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), some doctors believe the virus can remain in vaginal fluid and semen for up to several months.

    A report by CNN said this of ZMapp: “The drug was developed by the biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., which is based in San Diego. The company was founded in 2003 “to develop novel pharmaceuticals for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, focusing on unmet needs in global health and biodefense,” according to its website.

    “Mapp Biopharmaceutical has been working with the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the military responsible for countering weapons of mass destruction, to develop an Ebola treatment for several years.”

    On how the drug works, the report says: “Antibodies are proteins used by the immune system to mark and destroy foreign, or harmful, cells. A monoclonal antibody is similar, except it’s engineered in a lab so it will attach to specific parts of a dangerous cell, according to the Mayo Clinic, mimicking your immune system’s natural response. Monoclonal antibodies are used to treat many different types of conditions.”

    The drug is produced with proteins made from tobacco plants. ZMapp manufacturer Kentucky BioProcessing in Owensboro provided limited quantities of this kind of the drug to Emory, according to company spokesman David Howard.

    With the recovery of two patients who were given the drug and the death of another two after receiving the treatment, many have wondered why it worked in some and failed in others. The CNN report says there is no proof that the Americans survived because of ZMapp.

    “The drug had shown promise in primates, but even in those experiments, just eight monkeys received the treatment. In any case, the human immune system can react differently than primates’, which is why drugs are required to undergo human clinical trials before being approved by government agencies for widespread use. These cases will be studied further to determine how the drug worked with their immune systems,” the report says.

    Ebola is a rare disease, almost completely confined to poor countries – so funding for drug development has come largely from government agencies.

    In March, the NIH awarded a five-year, $28 million grant to establish collaboration between researchers from 15 institutions working to fight Ebola. Last Wednesday, Wellcome Trust and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development announced that money for Ebola research will be made available from a $10.8 million initiative.

    So far, scientists say the efficacy of ZMapp can only be confirmed after further studies.

  • ‘By God’s grace, Ebola Virus’ll end’

    ‘By God’s grace, Ebola Virus’ll end’

    International aid workers say the official Ebola figures — an estimated 2,615 cases and 1,427 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone — are almost certainly much lower than the real number of infections and deaths, but there is a growing optimism that its end is near, reports The New York Times

    The other nurses call her Mummy, and she resembles a field marshal in light brown medical scrubs, charging forward, exhorting nurses to return to duty, inspecting food for patients, doing a dance for once-infected co-workers who live — “nurse survivors,” she called them enthusiastically and barking orders from the head-to-toe suit that protects her from her patients.

    In the campaign against the Ebola virus, which is sweeping across parts of West Africa in an epidemic worse than all previous outbreaks of the disease combined, the front line is stitched together by people like Ms. Sellu: doctors and nurses who give their lives to treat patients who will probably die; janitors who clean up lethal pools of vomit and waste so that beleaguered health centers can stay open; drivers who venture into villages overcome by illness to retrieve patients; body handlers charged with the dangerous task of keeping highly infectious corpses from sickening others.

    Their sacrifices are evident from the statistics alone. At least 129 health workers have died fighting the disease, according to the World Health Organization. But while many workers have fled, leaving already shaky health systems in shambles, many new recruits have signed up willingly — often for little or no pay, and sometimes giving up their homes, communities and even families in the process.

    “If I don’t volunteer, who can do this work?” asked Kandeh Kamara, one of about 20 young men doing one of the dirtiest jobs in the campaign: finding and burying corpses across eastern Sierra Leone.

    When the outbreak started months ago, Mr. Kamara, 21, went to the health center in Kailahun and offered to help. When officials there said they could not pay him, he accepted anyway.

    “There are no other people to do it, so we decided to do it just to help save our country,” he said of himself and the other young men. They call themselves “the burial boys.”

    Doctors without Borders trained them to wear protective equipment and to safely clear out dead bodies potentially infected with Ebola. They travel across backbreaking dirt roads for up to nine hours a day.

    Ms. Sellu, who is one of the only Ebola workers at the Kenema hospital who have neither contracted the virus nor fled.

    In doing their jobs the burial boys have become pariahs. Many have been cast out of their communities because of fear that they will bring the virus home with them. Some families refuse to let them return.

    After Mr. Kamara started working, his family said, he was no longer welcome in his village. His uncle, the family patriarch, told him never to come back. At first, he stayed with a friend, but the man’s wife was afraid and kicked him out, too. With no pay for months, he sometimes begged on the street after work to get enough money for food. Recently, he talked the owner of a small shop into clearing out enough space in a back room for him to sleep there.

    He is finally getting paid, about $6 a day, and he hopes to find a room to rent, probably at an inflated price. Some of the other burial boys have tried to rent apartments but have been refused.

    “If I have a long life, I can go back to my people,” Mr. Kamara said. “I can talk to them: ‘I’m doing this job for you.’ Maybe they can understand me.”

    At the government hospital a few hours away in Kenema, photographs of the dead nurses are still plastered on the crumbling walls. Notes to young women suddenly cut down, like Elizabeth Lengie Koroma — “Lengie We All Love U But God Loves U” — offer visual reminders of the pain that remains.

    “Today three, tomorrow four — it was just like that, rapid,” Ms. Sellu recalled, her cheery demeanor quickly dropping. “We said, ‘What is happening?’”

    She added, “You are asking, ‘Who is next?’ “ In all, some 22 workers at the hospital died.

    The nurses and doctors here had banked on their experience treating Lassa fever, another deadly disease that causes bleeding. But Ebola is of a different order, and they had never seen it before.

    With the first cases, the nurses simply used their Lassa goggles. Ebola demands a far more protective face shield. They also used “light gloves,” Ms. Sellu said. Now, she puts on two layers of heavy-duty rubber gloves. The inadequate initial precautions had fatal consequences, even for the revered young doctor who headed the Lassa unit, Dr. Sheik Umar Khan.

    “Such a careful man, always saying, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that,’ “ Ms. Sellu said. “That is the mystery.” Dr. Khan died on July 29, a huge blow to the nation.

    Ms. Sellu also spoke about the nurses she had lost to Ebola. Usually so keen on projecting strength to her subordinates, she began to cry.

    “It has been a nightmare for me,” she said, her features contorting. “Since the whole thing started, I have cried a lot.” She added: “It came to a time when I was thinking of quitting this job. It was too much for me.”

    But the lesson she drew appeared inevitable to her. “You have no options. You have to go and save others,” Ms. Sellu said. “You are seeing your colleagues dying, and you still go and work.”

    At the height of the deaths last month, her two teenage children and her family in the capital, Freetown, urged her to stop. The remaining nurses at the hospital staged a revolt. One morning, 40 of them appeared outside the door of her home in Kenema, yelling, “If one of us dies again, prepare yourself to die!”

    Frightened, her children warned her. “They have come for you! Mummy, don’t go there again!’ “She recalled. “And my relations in Freetown were saying, ‘Don’t go there again!’ “

    Ms. Sellu disobeyed all of them. “I was sneaking in at the end of the day,” she said.

    With precision, she recalled the day the nightmare at the hospital began: May 25. In neighboring Guinea, where the epidemic started, the crisis had appeared, falsely, to be abating. In Kenema, a patient was bleeding profusely.

    “The nurses were curious; they called me,” she said. “Dr. Khan said, ‘Do the test.’ “ It was positive for Ebola.

    “The whole hospital went haywire,” Ms. Sellu said. “All the nurses were put into quarantine.”

    But it was the second case, in the hospital’s private annex for V.I.P.s, “that put the calamity on us,” she said. The patient was a local chief suffering from severe diarrhea and vomiting. He infected three nurses and a porter. The porter and one nurse died. The dying nurse was pregnant and miscarried, infecting all four nurses who aided in the delivery. All four died.

    “There are times when I say, ‘Oh my God, I should have chosen secretarial,’ “ Ms. Sellu said. But her job as a healer, she said, “is the calling of God.”

    The Kenema hospital is a different place now. In the last several weeks, with international help, a more rigorous system for screening, filtering and holding Ebola patients has been instituted. Confidence among the nurses has been restored.

    Outside the hospital, they continue to face stigma. Some of Ms. Sellu’s staff spoke of husbands abandoning them and neighbours shunning them. One nurse told of returning home to find her belongings in suitcases on the sidewalk, and her spouse warning her to stay away. Another nurse, seeking lodgings, lied to the landlord, telling him she was a student.

    “If you meet with them, they will balance this way and that not to touch you,” said Veronica Tucker, a nurse who survived an Ebola infection, doing a little jig to demonstrate her experience on the streets of Kenema.

    The epidemic goes on. International aid workers say the official figures — an estimated 2,615 cases and 1,427 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone — are almost certainly much lower than the real number of infections and deaths.

    Ms. Sellu finds some reason for optimism, though. She has seen the flood of Ebola patients diminish. And she and her nurses are no longer alone in the fight.

    “Some went, but we stayed,” said a nurse, Nancy Yoko. “We have kept coming. We never left.”

    Ms. Sellu then shooed away her visitors, put on her suit and prepared for work.

    “By the grace of God, it will end,” she said.

  • Rotary moves against Ebola Virus

    The Rotary Club of Isolo, District 9110 Nigeria, in conjunction with Babalola Peace Foundation, has launched an awareness campaign on the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

    The campaign was part of activities to welcome the District Governor of Rotary, District 9110 Nigeria, Dr Bamidele Balogun, when he visited the club.

    An Ophthalmologist, Dr Fatai Oluyadi said the campaign was to increase awareness on the measures to prevent the spread of the virus and let people know that the disease will become history if the measures are observed.

    He urged people to continue with the hygienic measures of washing their hands, frequent use of sanitisers, avoiding bush meat and touching or washing of the dead, among others.

    Caregivers, he said, should protect themselves by wearing masks, gloves and goggles where they come in contact with people who may have Ebola.

    “The health institutions have to be meticulous about accessing a patient, even before the patient enters the hospital. The government also needs to provide facilities to handle the few cases that we have,” he said.

    Oluyadi identified some of the symptoms of Ebola as fever, sore throat, muscle pains, headaches, vomiting, loss of appetite, and bleeding from the mouth or intestine.

    He advised people to avoid going to crowded environments where people may have the disease, avoid contact with body fluids, sweat, saliva, semen and blood of infested persons both living and dead.

    The President, Rotarian Adegoke Adeoye, said besides the campaign on Ebola, the club distributed 2000 pamphlets on precautions of its outbreak; de-wormed children in the area and commissioned drinkable and disease-free water project at Aye Bus stop, Isolo, to improve on resident’s health and prevent all other forms of diseases.

    “In our quest to help humanity, the club also graduated and gave certificate to about 12 teachers which it has trained and donated a wheel chair to a disabled cobler, Mr Adelabu in Isolo,” he said.

    Balogun said Rotary cares about the people, adding that the club’s activities were a symbol of what Rotary does. The club, he said, had done well.

  • Some natural ammunition against Ebola Virus fever (3)

    The fear of Ebola Virus is still sweeping through Nigeria, and in the drive to contain the virus, the unimaginable may happen. A vaccine untested on animals and, after, small group of humans, may be exploded on an entire population.

    Let’s not forget that the vaccine will be nothing but weak Ebola Viruses. The parents of my generation enthusiastically surrendered us their children to smallpox vaccination. And, now, about 60 years after, we are being told by authorities no less than medical doctors that this could be the cause of the explosion of cancer of all sorts worldwide. Today, I wish to present an alternative view to the one-way medical traffic about how we can get out of the Ebola rot. It is a material opinion, not a spiritual beacon, which will follow. As this column explained in the last two series, this question is all about the IMMUNE SYSTEM and the RIGHT DIET and HERBS to maintain it. The alternative view to the groundswell today comes from Dr. Robert O. Young, author of  THE pH MIRACLE, which I was privileged to review in THE COMET newspaper for several weeks a few years ago. He shows that the body should be alkaline at 7.4pH on a 0-14 pH scale, where anything below 7 is acidic and above 7 alkaline. Over to Dr. Robert Young.

    Ebola – Another Round For The Propaganda Matrix Don’t Be fooled Yet Again.

    Every few years, just like clockwork, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and The World Health Organisation (WHO) conspire on a new global threat to scare the living daylights out of people. Both organisations will spread lies of unfathomable magnitude in an attempt to disrupt and instill fear to ultimately exert control and obtain compliance on populations. They’ve done it before with the flu and they’re doing it again with Ebola.

    Look no further back than 2009 during the flu pandemic hype, and we have the perfect example of a fabricated international orchestration of deception designed to get billions hooked on the fear bandwagon so that Big Pharma could sell millions of antivirals and vaccines for a flu that was no more dangerous than the common cold.

    Manipulating data, promoting falsehoods, continually misinforming the public and using all forms of media to publicise “a deceptive plan”, are all effective strategies currently deployed to extend a massive psychological operation to world populations.

    The orchestrators of pandemics have historically used the same tactics to achieve their goals. Incrementalism plays a large part in priming the populace for vaccination programmes so that administering them becomes a voluntary process rather than forced. The incremental approach gradually integrates all demographic and psychographic factors such as age, set, family, size, language, culture, education, job responsibilities, geography, religion, and how every company, product and service could affect response. It is inclusive of all scenarios that could detrimentally affect the operation. By experimenting through the decades, the orchestrators have learned the best psychological tactics through trial and error.

     

    Using junk science to promote fear

    Both of WHO and CDC claim that by employing their monitoring standards on outbreaks from different parts of the world, they are able to obtain sufficient information to make tentative conclusions about how the epidemics may evolve in the coming months. Much of their clever phrasing is convincing enough to conceal the fact that all their disease policies on response and preparation recommendations are based on pure speculation and junk science.

    The reporting that Ebola is spreading faster in Africa than efforts to control it is based on substantial misinformation. In particular, late last week it was announced that two Americans who had been infected with Ebola were going to be flown back to the US, specifically to Emory University, for treatment, a development that ramped up the fear engine within the media (and the alternative media) about the Ebola virus to even greater heights. One of the problems is that officials will not collect data on the spread of Ebola based on accurate systematic lab confirmation since they will use unreliable methods such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The end point results of conventional PCR are not very precise and end point detection has a very short dynamic range with little chance of detecting the differences between dead or live microorganisms. The CDC is testing all suspected Ebola patients through this method. The PCR method WILL NOT identify if a person is infected with Ebola at contagious levels. Finding trace amounts of Ebola through this method usually means little yet this is how they identify and report to the media that a person is infected.

    They will only refer to “confirmed cases” and do not distinguish between confirmed and non-confirmed case. It would appear that the “non-confirmed” cases are categorised as confirmed cases and the numbers are then used by the CDC to prove that the disease is spreading when it isn’t.

    Also, suggesting that the human immune system is incapable of addressing Ebola without chemical assistance is also a complete lie. During the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, more than 80 percent of the people treated with allopathic drugs died. Yet, 80 percent of the people who took natural remedies survived. For example, the seeds of the African bitter kola tree have properties that can kill the Ebola virus. Also coffee, fermented soy, homeopathic spider venom and Vitamin C, may all hold promise as anti-Ebola virus therapies, despite the common belief that nothing can stop this lethal virus from spreading uncontrollably worldwide.

    Squashing the innate abilities of human immune system to heal and promoting chemicals is simply another attempt to propagate the need for vaccines. A Canadian pharmaceutical company called Tekmira has been at work for the past few years on an Ebola treatment called TKM-Ebola. Disease like Ebola often have difficulty attracting investment, as pharmaceutical companies rarely see a large payday in tackling a disease that has rare outbreaks and affects a low-income area of the world.

    But TKM-Ebola has attracted the interest of the government. The Defense Department awarded it a contract for $140 million in 2010, after the vaccine proved completely effective in treating non-human primates in chimps. The government’s interest in vaccinating against Ebola is largely rooted in preventing bioterrorism attacks, where the disease could be used a weapon.

    How does Ebola become a deadly infection and why vaccines are not the answer?

    There can be no doubt that Ebola is a dangerous and frightening disease and even though it can kill about 90 percent of its victims, it would not in the developed world, largely because of two factors. The first is the person’s health in general – his or her immune system and ability to bounce back from a viral infection. The second is the type of exposure he or she got. Recovery may be more likely if it wasn’t a severe exposure – meaning, perhaps they were exposed to someone who was early on in the illness, and the amount of virus in the bodily fluids was not yet that high. A 90 percent kill rate would be near impossible in any developed nation.

    Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, M.D., the associate hospital epidemiologist at Bostom Medical Centre and director of Infection Control at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories says that in addition to what is known about Ebola, it requires a known marker on the surface of human cells themselves, which it uses to gain entry into the cell. Researchers have found in a laboratory setting that some people’s cell lines actually lack this marker, or it may be mutated somehow, so that the Ebola can’t get into the cells. However, Ebola research is still very much in its infancy, and knowledge about how the virus behaves is still evolving, preventing and curing it. The most important consideration is that no infection – including highly lethal one like Ebola occurs in a vacuum. Psychological, biological, environmental and sociopolitical factors all determine the incidence, spread and virulence of viral infections.

    In a widely shared onion article from a few days ago, scientists “announced” that an Ebola vaccine was still 50 white people away. This was a job at pharmaceutical companies, who, cynics think, will only set their R&D wheels in motion if there’s money on the horizon.

    There are several strains of Ebola. The current strain is ZEBOV, or Zaire virus, but there are also Sudan and Cote d’lvoire versions. It would be impossible to design a vaccine that would work against all of them. Vaccines have an established record of failure in fast-moving epidemics. Donald Allegra, chair of infection control at Newton Medical Center in New Jersey, remembers trying to halt the advance of measles in a Cambodian refugee camp in the 1970s. “We vaccinated 10,000 kids, but didn’t have an effect on the outbreak, “he said. “Vaccines and acute outbreaks don’t work very well together”.

    Unlike cells, the Ebola virus cannot use its genetic material by itself. Living matter reproduces and passes on genetic material as a blueprint for growth and subsequent reproduction. However, the Ebola virus like other viruses needs a living cell in order to function and reproduce; otherwise it’s just playing dead. It can’t divide by binary fission like bacteria. A vaccine facilitates the virus and provides an optimal environment to host cells where it is then forced to expend all of its energy and resources to help the virus replicate and make hundreds of more viruses.   It does this through unchecked immune suppression which affects T-cells. Vaccination provides the gateway to allow natural immunity to fail and allow this process to a greater extent by suppressing cellular.

    One of the best ways to prevent the spread of  Ebola is to help the body’s immune system create an effective response to the virus. Ebola does appear to be a uniquely pathogenic virus to which the human body has yet adequate time to properly adapt, and therefore it is instructive to point other potential natural therapies that have been studied in the past:

    • Garcinia Kola: (Bitter Kola) As reported in 1999, extracts from the seeds of this traditional African medicinal herb were found to”….inhibit this virus (Ebola) in cell culture at non-toxic concentrations.”
    • Vitamin C: According to the late Dr. Robert Cathcart, MD, who had extensive experience treating deadly infections with high dose vitamin C, “the Ebola virus kills by way of free radicals which can be neutralised by massive doses of sodium ascorbate intravenously. “Indeed, Ebola virus disease – as is the case with viral hemorrhagic disease in general – resembles features of acute scurvy, and vitamin C is well known to have a broad range of benefits, including immune-boosting and antiviral properties, with an incredibly high safety margin.
    • Homeopathic interventions: A study published in 1999 explored the therapeutic potential of a homeopathic preparation of the six-eyed spider venom (Sicarius) at treating symptoms associated with Ebola virus infection.
    • Estradiol: A 2013 analysis, titled “ A systematic screen of FDA- approved drugs for inhibitors of biological treat agents, “ found that estradiol exhibited anti-Ebola virus activity in vitro, indicating the relevance of hormonal factors and perhaps gender in susceptibility to the disease – as well as a possible therapeutic role for estradiol if future clinical research confirms bears these findings out.

    There are a wide range of natural compounds that have yet to be evaluated for their direct anti-Ebola activity and/or immune boosting properties, and that may be highly relevant to the goal of immunity. The poor, weak cell usually bursts like an overinflated balloon from all the viruses and is destroyed in the process. Then, the replicated virus attached itself to a new, unaffected host cell, and the viral infection continues. Vaccination will never solve the Ebola puzzle.

    Adenovirus vaccines, which have been used in Liberia, Guinea can have serious adverse reaction. Should any population confide in vaccination for the Ebola virus, they would cause an untold number of deaths.

    Why Ebola and why now? And why all the drama?

    An African nurse vaccinated a child against a fungus called pneumococcus. Pneumococcus fungus is a biological transformation of what used to be a healthy plant, animal or human cell. This fungus is said to be responsible for over 60 percent of all childhood deaths in Africa. I would suggest that the increase in this fungal condition is directly related to the water, food, sanitation and hygiene of the child. Bacteria, yeast, fungi, mold and their waste products – viruses, are born in us and from us as a consequence of an acidic lifestyle and diet.

    All infectious disease at home or in Africa is born within the body from the acidic waste products of diet, metabolism, respiration and the environment which are NOT properly eliminated through the four channels of elimination. When acidic waste products are NOT circulated and eliminated through urination, defecation, perspiration or respiration they are distributed out to the connective and fatty tissues. When this happens you set the stage for ALL sickness and disease.

    All viruses are non-living entities and because they are liquid or gas they can penetrate the cell membrane damaging and destroying the DNA. These non-living entities are ALL the acidic waste products from diet, metabolism, respiration, environment and the biological transformations or evolutions of healthy cells into bacteria, yeast and mold that produce acidic waste products. These acidic waste products are called exotoxins, endotoxins, and mycotoxins. The creation of pneumococcus or fungi is the result of acidic build build-up in the tissues, organs or glands and the biological transformation of once healthy body cells into bacteria, fungi and then mold. Just like food in your refrigerator goes from healthy to moldy. Don’t you know you don’t get old, you mold. So should we vaccinate our food or the human body so it won’t go moldy? O-wait they are already doing this to our food and children!

    The germs of the air can only contribute to a sickness or disease but it cannot cause a sickness or disease. Seeds grow perfectly well in soil but throw them on concrete and they will not grow. It is all about the environment – the internal environment. And there is only one sickness and one disease! That one sickness and one disease is the over-acidification of the blood and then tissues due to an inverted or acidic way of living, eating and thinking. One last example, I call this example the ‘Love Boat’ metaphor. So what happens on a cruise ship like the ‘Love Boat’ – Over-eating acidic food, over-drinking acidic drinks, lack of restful sleep, lack of exercise, over exposure to chemicals in the food, drinking water, shower water and swimming pool water. People get constipated. They become dehydrated. They stop eliminating their waste products. So, people get sick on the ‘Love Boat’ because of their lifestyle and dietary choices and NOT because of some phantom virus like Ebola or fungi like pneumococcus. And the interesting thing is NOT everyone gets sick. Only those who stop eliminating their acidic waste products get sick. This condition of sickness is NOT caused by some phantom virus that selectively picked on YOU! IT is ALL about circulation, elimination and maintaining the delicate alkaline pH of the body fluids.

    Germs and viruses are symptoms of acidic living, eating and thinking. They do NOT cause disease they are the result of acidic build-up in the tissues, organs and glands because of poor circulation and elimination. Sickness and disease is the body in preservation mode trying to rid itself of toxic acidic waste products and restore its natural healthy alkaline state before it quickly dies. As Claude Bernard, a 20th century medical doctor and research scientist, stated, “the germ is NOTHING the TERRIAN is everything.

    The healthy and natural approach to preventing and/or reversing any sickness or disease condition is to maintain the alkaline design of the body with an alkaline lifestyle and diet. True immunity is then achieved by maintaining the delicate alkaline pH of the blood, tissues, organs and glands through good hygiene, clean alkaline water, green alkaline fruit, vegetables, and sprouts, cold-pressed polyunsaturated oils, daily exercise, low stress, and restful sleep.

    So, why Ebola and why Now?  That is a question for each of us to answer. I know the answer! What do you say?

    And what about giving vaccines for a phantom virus?

    What about the use of antibiotics used by conventional medicine for killing bacteria NOT fungi or mold or virus/acid?

    And, finally what are the ingredients of these vaccines?

    Are they safe?

    What is their long term effect of the vaccine?

    Is Africa the testing ground for drugs/vaccines?

    To learn more about pH Miracle Living pHorever read the pH Miracle, revised and updated-

    www.phmiracle.com or www.phmiraclebooks.com

    I would also suggest reading ‘Sick and Tired’ and ‘A Second thought about Viruses, Vaccines and the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis’. Finally, pick up Professor Peter Duesberg’s book on ‘Inventing the AIDS Virus’. He also talks about the inventing of Ebola, Hep C, SARS, West Nile Virus and other phantom viruses..

    PS – The picture below of the so-called Ebola is Not a Ebola Virus, it is a parasite. NO ONE has ever isolated the Ebola Virus – NO ONE!!!!!! Ebola is a phantom virus. This scientific fraud started in 1983 with the invention of the AIDS Virus. PLEASE read Dr. Duesberg’s book inventing the AIDS Virus’ and NOW the EBOLA Virus!!!

    Education NOT Medication!

    Education NOT Vaccination!

    Education NOT Radiation!

    Prevention NOT Intervention!

    Health Care NOT Sick Care!

    YoungaCare NOT ObamaCare! 

  • Our battle against Ebola virus outbreak, by Fashola

    Our battle against Ebola virus outbreak, by Fashola

    There is no Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic in Lagos, Governor Babatunde Fashola said yesterday.

    In a broadcast on the disease, Fashola said though the state had suffered painful loss of lives, the situation was not an epidemic as being alleged because “all those who have either died or are suffering from Ebola are directly traceable” to the Liberian EVD importer, Patrick Sawyer.

    He said 61 contacts were cleared last week after the 21 days surveillance, which is the known lifespan of the virus.

    “These people were not sick. They were persons who needed to be monitored because of real or suspected contacts to be certain that they did not eventually fall sick. We cautiously wait to see how many more people will be cleared and hope that there will be no new cases.

    “Nevertheless, our strategy is to prepare for the worst by making plans to expand the facility to take any new cases, while we hope for the best. There is a lot to do, and we need your collaboration to remain focused on containment and treatment”, Fashola said.

    He also debunked claims that Ebola victims were being neglected, adding that the state did not reject any useful drug; neither is there fund shortage.

    Fashola said victims were receiving the best care as recommended by experts, urging medical volunteers willing to fight the cause to sign up and present themselves for training.

    “I wish to state very categorically that none of these is true. What is true is that we should perhaps never have been in this situation, but we are now in it. What is true is that the Ebola virus did not break out from within Nigeria, it was imported into Nigeria.

    “What is true is that we have followed all the contacts that we know who have had primary and secondary contacts with the patient who imported the virus into our state, or with people who had contact with him.

    “Because we had to react to an unexpected situation, we had to react in a proper and methodical way, according to acceptable global health standards.

    “I can now tell you that in the last one week, with the help and advice of our technical partners, such as the World Health Organisation, the Centre for Disease Control and the Medecins Sans Frontiers, who have tracked this virus and studied it for decades, our response is a lot better than when the news first broke; and our capacity is increasing daily.

    “Although we have suffered very painful losses of lives, I think it is fair to say that we are not yet at an epidemic stage and we are determined to do everything not to get to that stage; because of the grave consequences to the safety of human lives,” said Fashola.

    Fashola said the discovery of EVD in the state posed a threat to the primary purpose of his administration, which is to secure lives. He described the situation as the biggest challenge to public health.

    He said he had been engaged in meetings daily with various stakeholders on the progress made by the government and the need for caution, adding that with news of complete recovery of a Nigerian doctor confirmed to have contracted the virus, the case of unknown origin had been eliminated.

    “My view of the fact that we are gaining control is informed by verifiable facts that I receive daily from our health workers that all the cases of those who have either unfortunately died, or those who are sick, and those who are contacts under surveillance are directly traceable to the imported case.

    “The challenge of managing the Ebola virus is big but our resolve to contain and defeat it is bigger. That resolve is demonstrated by the courage shown by the first set of health workers at state and federal levels who stood up to be counted, and the leadership of the state and federal ministries of Health with the support of our international partners.

    “In spite of fear, they stood up to be counted at a time of grave danger. We should salute their courage, professionalism, patriotism and humanitarian disposition. They are the heroes and heroines that we have looked for a long time. I cannot thank them enough.

    “While we are doing everything to assure their safety and to give them confidence to proceed, I want to passionately appeal that we must not do anything to distract them or demotivate them.”

    The governor urged the people to report suspected cases around them as well as stop unhygienic practices, such as defecating or urinating in public, because those are body fluids and waste through which the virus is known to thrive.

    Fashola expressed appreciation to those who are seeking to raise funds for the current battle against the virus but pointed out that the State “is not yet at the fund-raising stage and cannot foresee that eventually”.

    “For now, the State has enough resources to fund everything that is needed. This is what your taxes can do in emergencies. Our House of Assembly has thankfully approved a request for any needed expenditure”, the Governor said adding that the Federal Government has shown “the appropriate level of concern about the national and global risk this poses and I am sure they will provide funds should we be unable to do so if we ask for it”.

    He said the combined team of State and Federal personnel and the international partners are also sharing information with the public and the Federal Government about the status of the patients and contacts in a transparent way adding, “We should all please listen to them. They are the ones who have the facts”.

  • Some natural ammunition against Ebola Virus fever (2)

    EBOLA VIRUS is still at the centre stage of public thought. How I wish it will rapidly give way to loftier discussions. I say this because, like the spoken word, thoughts have a magnetic force. There is nothing that comes into being through us that we did not originate in the thought. If you are in a bus and you think intensely about the passenger some seats ahead of yours, he or she is likely to be connected to you by your thought, and look back in the direction of this thought… to you. Often, we suddenly remember some-one we hadn’t seen in a long, long while, and, the next day or soon after, that person walks in or telephones us, and says had been trying to reach us! Sometimes, we are trying to telephone someone at the same time that person is trying to reach us. Nature informs us through these events that thoughts are living forces which Nature beings, like porters, fashion into appropriate thought forms. These forms are seeds attached to their authors who must  reap bountiful harvests of them someday. There was a time in Lagos the uniform of the traffic police was changed to yellow colour. Many people nicknamed these traffic men yellow fever. And, sure enough, soon after, a new epidemic of yellow fever disease broke out! In this respect, the genuine efforts to find a way out of the present Ebola virus jungle should be well helped if frivolous talk and jokes about Ebola virus are stopped, to give way to thoughts emanating from serious efforts.

    Last Friday, I gave a talk on these matters at International Transport Workers Federation (ITWF) cancer screening and Ebola virus fever seminar which took place at the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) State Office Abule-Egba. The talk was more of a review of the first part of this series published in this newspaper the previous day.

     Fear

    Ebola virus fear continues to envelope Lagos in a thick pall. And fear, deriving from thought, can manifest in the thought-form of that which is feared. Someday, this thought from may, in turn, materialise in the physical form of the thought-form, in this case, Ebola virus fever epidemic. To avert an epidemic, the government of Lagos State has asked the Federal Government to close the boarders. But the Federal Government is hesitant because closing the boarders may suffocate the economy and cause serious social problems. This is not a time to do nothing. A middle-ground can be found. That middle ground may involve blood screening for all immigrants from all regions of the world where this disease has occurred in epidemic or pandemic proportions. The government should investigate how the Liberian who brought Ebola virus to Nigeria beat immigration officers to it. They should have known he was a Liberian and stopped him. It for Ebola screening is because we do not investigate well enough and punish culprits that corruption thrives in Nigeria and lives are endangered. Who knows, this Liberian may have tossed $100 at someone to get in. Wasn’t this how guns, military guns, got into this country and we now have Boko Haram on our hands? Let us not forget, also, that fireworks were banned in Nigeria in 1962 during the Western Nigeria crisis, but are still “heavenly” imported into Nigeria every year; And, irrespective of police reminders of the ban every Christmas season, fireworks enliven the Christmas season, our even inside police barracks! This shows we are an irresponsible people and need a responsible government to make us mature and behave well.

     Bubonic Plague

    We are probably irresponsible and misbehaving because we are not well taught the history of the suffering of other people who had been killed in their millions by diseases similar to Ebola virus fever. Personally, I do not wish that we experience the human holocausts they went through for our eyes to open wide. That was why, last week, I promised to include in this series a disease, bubonic plague similar in its   devastation of human lives as Ebola virus.

    Last week, I hinted that when it struck England in 1348, it killed 1.7 million of the 4 million residents of London.

     Garlic

    Last week, I suggested the consumption of garlic with every meal as a way of boasting the immune system, which god has placed in our bodies to destroy any germ or parasite, including Ebola virus, which may seek to destroy it. I also mentioned bitter kola. Dr. Robert Young, and American researcher and author of the book pH Miracle, says Ebola virus has been inhibited in cell cultures in which non-toxin doses of Garcinia kola (Bitter kola) were used against it. He suggests as well massive doses of Vitamin C to neutralise the free radicals Ebola virus attacks the body with. Many doctors continue to emphasise the washing of hands with soap and bleach without reference to the immune system. Understandably, drugs cannot boost immunity, and doctors have little or no training in nutrition or hebalism, which offers natural ways of maintaining and boosting this design of God in our bodies. It is also for this reason that I wish to present an account of the four prisoners who survived the Bubonic Plague which must have killed more than about 200 million people in Europe and Asia in epidemics and pandemics. Thereafter, I will present accounts of this human travail world-wide to warn that the conditions for it are present here, and we should take immediate steps to educate ourselves more about the immune system and change our present diet to God’s Creation Plan for feeding our bodies, as Dr. George Malkhmus did so to survive his stomach cancer.

    The four prisoners

    Known as “the four thieves and their herbs” on goggle, an account of their story by Daves Garden is this:

    “The Plague was known as The Great Pestilence” or “The Great Plague”. Later it was called the “Black Death Plague” and compared to the “Asian Bubonic Plague”, the variation of the stories vary in time from the mid-13th century to the 16th Century and location from Italy, France and England. It is true the plague resurfaced over and over again during those many years, so any time frame may also be true.” The story I first heard many years ago was that the local magistrates needed men to haul away the rapidly accumulating dead bodies. It happened there were four thieves in prison who had been arrested for stealing from the homes of the dead, and they were conscripted to haul the bodies. One of the thieves had a mother who was a herbalist, she made an herbal vinegar the men used on a fabric handkerchief over their mouths and noses while they robbed the dead. She supplied more of the same as the thieves took on their assigned tasks. The men survived carting away dead and decaying bodies without catching the plague, and the magistrates took note. The magistrate offered them a deal. The thieves could have been hung for their crimes, or divulge their secret and go free. They gave up the recipe. The tales continue to say that many others used the herbal vinegar and survived.

    “The recipe ingredients vary from tale to talk, but with todays’ science we know that most of the herbals reportedly used are antifungal and antiseptic. I know from personal experience that the four thieves recipe I use make a fine insect repellant, and I make a new patch to every spring to use on me and my pets. The recipe is for an insect repellant, and not to be taken internally as some of the recipe variations suggest. The recipe contains Rosemary, Rue or Herb of Grace, Garden Sage, Lavender, Wormwood and peppermint steeped in a base of raw, unpasteurised, fermented apple, cider vinegar with added fresh garlic after the initial brewing.

    “Various other recipe include the addition of Thyme. Lemon Balm, Meadows sweet, Marjoram and Jumper berries”. Almost all the recipe I use contain the ingredient I use plus other additions, but I stick with the ingredients common in most recipes”.

    All the herbs named by Daves Garden are used orally in natural medicine as shown, for example, by ANNE ARNOTT in her book, FRUITS OF THE EARTH, which says of Garlic:

    “Garlic is mentioned in Number 11 as being one of the vegetables which children of Israel greatly missed when they were traveling through the wilderness to the Promised Land. They had learned of its very great value when they were slaves in Egypt. Garlic was felt by the ancient Egyptians to give them strength and vitality and stamina, and was given daily to their slaves who were constructing the pyramids. In fact, it is said that the first strike known in history occurred when the slaves downed tools because their daily garlic ration was witheld while they were building the Pyramid Cheops. Garlic has been proved to be one of the most antiseptic of all herbs. It is thought to be useful in almost every physical ailment, and is a wholesome regular addition to food. Dr. Herbert Schweitzer is said to have used garlic to help cure the dreaded disease of Cholera and typhus (typhoid). Lips cancers are said to have been cured by its use. Asthma sufferers have greatly benefitted from its use. Tuberculosis patients were greatly helped by it before the use of modern drugs. It has been a proven help in many cases of high blood pressure. This is because the herb is found to open up the blood vessels reducing pressure. It has stopped angina pains and dizziness.

    “One of the most interesting recent discoveries about garlic was recorded in The Lancet in 1973, where its excellent effect in helping to prevent atherosclerosis, and reducing cholesterol levels in the blood was described.

    “Many people in this country hesitate to use garlic, except in great moderation in cookery, because of its almost overpowering smell and taste. But in 1920, a German doctor, J.A Hofels, came to live in England. He had made an extensive study of garlic and knew of what a wonderful food and medicine it was. He found a way to encapsulate the vital garlic oil, containing the most active part of the herb and all its essential oils in capsules known as garlic perles”.

    TODAY, KYOLIC GARLIC and KWAI garlic are among the most sought after brands worldwide.

    Kyolic is aged for about 16 months and its extracts are said by researchers to be about 50 times more potent than natural garlic.

    ON THE INTERNET J.B Bardot report: “In the 17th century, grave diggers in Europe drack wine containing crushed garlic or ate fresh garlic in an effort to ward off plague. The amazing disease-fighting have repeated tested true in thousands of studies. Garlic possesses potent, natural antibiotic and anti-microbial properties able to protect against plague. Garlic is also high in antioxidants that destroy free radicals, supporting a strong immune system. The active ingredient in garlic, allicen, contains antibacterial, antifungal and anti-viral properties known to kill numerous disease causing bacteria. Because garlic has such immune-building properties, regular supplementation acts prophylactically, preventing bubonic plague from taking hold.”

    The Plague

    I promised to provide information on the deadliness of Bubonic Plague, which kills devastatingly like an ebola  fever epidemic, the following report fulfill that promise:

    The first recorded appearance of the plague in Europe was at Messina, Sicily, in October of 1347. It arrived on trading ships that very likely came from the Black Sea, past Constantinople and through the Mediterranean. This was a fairly standard trade route that brought to European customers such items as silks and porcelain, which were carried overland to the Black Sea from as far away as China.

    “As soon as the citizens of Messina realized what horrible sickness had come abroad these ships, they expelled them from the port—but it was too late. Plague quickly raged through the city, and panicking victims fled, thus spreading it to the surrounding countryside. While Sicily was succumbing to the horrors of the disease, the expelled trading ships brought it to other areas around the Mediterranean, infecting the neighboring Island of Corsica and Sardinia by November.

    “Meanwhile, plague had travelled from Sarai to the Genoese trading station of Tana, east of the Black Sea. Here Christian merchants were attacked by Tartars and chased to their fortress at Kaffa (Caffa). The Tartarts besieged the city in November, but their siege was cut short when the Black Death struck. Before breaking off their attack, however, they catapulted dead plague victims into the city in the hopes of infecting its residents.

    The defenders tried to divert the pestilence by throwing the bodies into the sea, but once a walled city had been struck by plague. Its doom was sealed. As the inhabitants of Kaffa began to fall to the disease, the merchants boarded ships to sail home. But they could not escape the plague. When they arrived in Genoa and Venice in January of 1348, a few passengers or sailors were left alive to tell the tale.

    But few plague victims were all that was required to bring the deadly illness to mainland Europe.

    The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1346-53. Although there were several competing theories as to the etiology of the Black Death, analysis of DNA from victims in northen and southern Europe published in 2010 and 2011 indicated that the pathogen responsible was the Yersinia pestisbacterium, probably causing several forms of plague.

    Consequences

     Death toll

    There are no exact figures for the death toll; the rate varied widely by locality. It killed some 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia. According to medieval historian Philip Daileader in 2007: The trend of recent research is pointing to a figure more like 45-50 percent of the European population dying during a four-year period. There is a fair amount of geographic variation. In Mediterranean Europe, areas such as Italy, the south of France and Spain, where plague ran for about four years consecutively, it was probably closer to 75 – 80 percent  of the population. In Germany and England… it was probably closer to 20percent.

    The most widely accepted estimate for the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran and Syria, during this time, is for a death rate of about a third. The Black Death killed about 40 percent  of Egypt’s population. Half of Paris’s population of 100,000 people died. In Italy, Florence’s population was reduced from 110-120 thousand inhabitants in 1338 down to 50,000 in 1351. At least 60 percent  of Hamburg’s and Bremen’s population perished, and a similar percentage of Londoners may have died from the disease as well. Before 1350, there were about 170,000 settlements in Germany, and this was reduced by nearly 40,000 by 1450. In 1348, the plague spread so rapidly that before any physicians or government authorities had time to reflect upon its origins, about a third of the European population had already perished. In crowded cities, it was not uncommon for as much as 50 percent  of the population to die. This disease bypassed some areas, and the most isolated areas were less vulnerable to contagion. Monks and priests were especially hard hit since they cared for the Death’s victims.

    Is the Health Minister listening? Is President Jonathan listening? Ebola virus is nothing to drag the foot over, or play politics with. If the boarders are not to be closed, serious screening has to be done. In Lagos, the federal or state government can pick the bill of the hospital shut on account of the Ebola virus fever death there. This will naturally include rent, salaries and income of the proprietors. The lives of our doctors who will handle quarantine settlements should be under life insurance cover, to encourage them.

  • Let’s elbow the Ebola virus

    SIR: With the confirmed symptoms in a female doctor and other three health workers who treated late Patrick Sawyer of Ebola virus, Africa’s most dreaded disease is finally here with us. Now that the disease is here with us, what are the ways out?

    First, government should provide well-equipped screening centres at our airports, sea ports and other border posts for testing and quarantine of people intending to enter Nigeria. Those whose duties are to screen them should be well equipped with appropriate tools for the job and to avoid possible contact with in coming carriers.

    Second, federal, states and local governments should adopt proactive enlightenment initiative on dos and don’ts of contracting the disease. Jingles and flyers detailing these preventive measures should be out as quickly as possible and made available to the rural areas. The enlightenment initiative of Lagos State government and the Federal Ministry of Health targeted at churches with worshipers all over the world especially from nations with cases of the virus is a right step in the right direction. Other states should take a cue.

    Third, as individuals, we should improve on our personal hygiene and be cautious of what we consume and touch. Consumption of bush meats of bats and primates (monkeys, apes, gorillas and chimpanzees) known to be primary sources of the disease should be put on hold for now. It could be contracted through body fluids from an infected person. So, it is no longer a must to have handshakes with friends or anyone who stretches his hand for a shake in the public. If you must do, wash your hands properly afterwards.

    Fourth, Ebola for now is an African disease and Africa should take bold steps aimed at finding a cure for it. It cannot be an oversight of the West that the first case of a disease was recorded in 1976 and in 2014 it has no cure. Investment in curative research on Ebola virus should commence immediately.

    Fifth, good hospitals with laboratory capacity of detecting the disease should be established. The nation needs to be grateful to God and First Consultant Medical Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos for having what it takes to detect the disease without which the nation would have been endangered.

    Ebola has for now defied medical cure, therefore acquiring knowledge on how one could prevent the disease, application of caution and common sense in our day to day activities will assist the nation to elbow the Ebola out of Nigeria.

    • Sunday Onyemaechi Eze

    Samaru, Zaria

     

  • Editors hail media coverage of outbreak

    Editors hail media coverage of outbreak

    The Standing Committee of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has hailed the media for its responsible reportage of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in the country.

    At its meeting in Lagos at the weekend, the committee urged the media to continue to tread the professional path and ensure that its reports do not cause panic in the polity.

    In a communiqué, the NGE urged state governments to set up isolation centres and units as proactive measures to enable them remain on top of the deadly virus.

    For a fastidious and exotic pathogen like Ebola, the guild warned that reactive steps would only result in risky “fire brigade approach”.

    The committee also urged government at various levels to sustain their awareness campaigns on how to prevent the spread of the EVD.

    The guild urged doctors to call off their strike and return to work “because the nation needs them now more than ever”.

    The Standing Committee advised the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and other relevant security agencies to be more alert to their responsibilities and ensure better policing of the nation’s land, sea and air borders to check the Ebola virus.

    It also urged the government to take the screening of passengers coming into the country more seriously so that infected or already ill patients of the EVD are not allowed free rein in Nigeria.

    On security, the NGE urged the Federal Government to step up the war against terror and review its tactics.

    The body also expressed worry about the insurgents’ use of under-age girls as suicide bombers.

    After about 120 days since the abduction of the pupils of Government Girls’ Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, the guild said the new trend in terror calls for concern.

    It said the nation’s apprehension “is further worsened by the increasing spate of attacks and brazen hoisting of Boko Haram flags in parts of Borno State”.

    In a statement by its President Femi Adesina, the guild expressed worry over the fate of the abducted Chibok girls.

    The NGE hailed the Federal Government for attempting to rescue the girls but noted that “not retrieving the girls from the hands of their captors is not an option”.

    “Lastly, the SCM called on the Federal Government to settle all outstanding issues with the Academic Staff of Universities Union, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, and others, to ensure that the nation’s tertiary institutions do not witness another season of embarrassing strikes,” NGE added.