The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Ebola

  • Ebola outbreak takes toll on Africa’s economy

    Ebola outbreak takes toll on Africa’s economy

    There are fears that the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa is beginning to bite into Nigeria’s economy and that of the continent at large.

    Already many business appointments in the sub region have been cancelled or scaled down while fears are rising that this may do harm to the economy of the country.

    However, Dr Jonathan Aremu, an economist, said if the Federal Government and states across the country keep up with the tempo of activities especially campaign meeting to raise awareness on the dangers of the disease, it will not have any adverse effect on the nation’s economy.

    According to him, “With the kind of seriousness shown by government at all levels, in terms of education that has helped to limit the spreading of the disease to the extent that the WHO even commended us, I think it is a good development.”

    Aremu who consults for ECOWAS said Nigerians for the first time seem to have gotten it right. “As the entire hub of the entire Africa, Nigeria does appear to have handled this whole thing very appropriately. Even in the villages the awareness level is high. So, I think on the economic front if we go ahead with the level of seriousness we have shown, all will be well.”

    On his part, Dr Austin Nweze, a political economist at Pan African University, Lagos, holds a different view.

     

    According to him, the virus has a huge economic impact in diverse areas of life. “From preliminary findings, one can say that the Ebola virus is already taking its toll on Nigeria’s economy. Even in sport the news that our people were asked not to participate in some sporting events is a negative development.”

    Other sectors, it has impacted,  Nweze said are aviation and banking.

    “Flights would not be full again because most countries are closing their borders. Even the banking sector is already feeling the pinch because a lot of people are not coming into the banks to transact business as much as before. Most customers are using online banking while those who can’t are staying out of the banks.”

    Nweze, however said the Ebola epidemic may have brought economic boom to some sectors as it has led to an upswing for businesses built around hygiene and other allied products.

    “Again those that are already benefitting from the outbreak of Ebola are those businesses involved in hygiene products and sanitary wares. So, I think this is a wakeup call for prospecting in this sector to go into the business,” he stressed.

    The Ebola epidemic is believed to be threatening the continent’s hard-won image as a rising economic star.

    The outbreak, declared an international health emergency by the World Health Organization, has killed more than 1,000 people and ravaged the small, fragile economies of the three worst-hit states, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

    Consequently, scarce financial resources are being diverted to contain the epidemic in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

    The Federal Government has earmarked N1.9billion to fight the scourge which has claimed four lives in the country.

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has admitted that the Ebola scare has slowed down its operations at the ports and border stations.

    The Public Relations Officer of the service, Mr. Wale Adeniyi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the downturn in the activities of the service to current operational emphasis on the protection of its officers and men against the virus.

    He said that measures were being taken to provide necessary facilities for the safety of the personnel and those they come in contact with in the course of their duties, adding that not much was being done operationally.

    “So, for now we are not really concerned much about revenue collection but we are concerned on how to ensure that officers and men do not contract the virus while doing their jobs,” he said.

    Besides, he said that the traffic of port users who deal with the Customs had reduced as everyone was being cautious of the virus.

    Adeniyi admitted that the current situation could negatively impact on revenue generation by the service.

    “The panic created by Ebola is definitely slowing down our operations particularly at the border stations, and if the current situation negatively impacts on revenue, I believe it will be perfectly understood,” he said.

    He said that officers and men of the service who made contact with passengers and their luggage would be equipped with adequate protective facilities to prevent them from contracting the virus.

    “We are also following this up with sensitisation of all stakeholders in the ports and borders to stress the importance of personal hygiene in curtailing the Ebola spread.

    “We have installed hand sanitisers in strategic positions in our offices to encourage officers and stakeholders to imbibe the practice of keeping their hands clean all the time,’’ he said.

    Eateries and bars have also been experiencing low patronage as people avoid contact with others for fear of getting infected.

    Suya and bush meat sellers as well as hunters are particularly hard hit.

    Many bush meat sellers have decided to stay at home for now until the situation improves while hunters asked for the sack of  Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu for saying that consumption of bush meat can cause Ebola infection.

    The hunters said the minister’s statement has made life difficult for them.

    Investigation by The Nation revealed that activities in the banking and other sub-sectors of the economy are being slowed down by the outbreak of the debilitating ailments.

    When The Nation visited some banks within Lagos metropolis and its environs, there was low customer attendance.

    A staff of one of the banks who would not be named because he was not authorised to speak disclosed that “patronage has dropped significantly as few people come into the banking hall these days for fear of contracting Ebola.”

    A delegation of  Brazilian executives has just cancelled a business trip to Namibia ,typifying the problems of perception raised for African countries which are remote geographically, economically and culturally from those suffering the outbreak in a corner of the continent.

    The Namibian capital, Windhoek, lies about 4,500 km from the outbreak’s West African epicentre – far further away than at least one major Brazilian city and scarcely any closer than Rio de Janeiro. Yet the delegation still called off the  trip to southern Africa due to pressure from families and employers.

  • Liberia opens second Ebola centre

    Liberia opens second Ebola centre

    Liberia has opened a new centre to treat Ebola patients after the existing one in the capital became overwhelmed with patients.

    Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said the first centre was only meant to treat 25 people and now has about 80 patients.

    The new centre which opened yesterday will have 120 beds but may eventually be tripled in size because of the ongoing crisis

    Isolating Ebola patients is key to slowing the spread of the disease, as sick people can transmit it through their bodily fluids such as blood, sweat or urine.

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa may last another six months.

    It also says the current toll of 1,069 may “vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak.”

  • The Giant who wielded the big stick on an ant

    Unfortunately, whenever the wake-up calls on our hospitals have come from the doctors, the typical response from government has been to display its fangs and threaten to tear all concerned to pieces. How indescribably inane!

    One day last week, I went into a shop to purchase a perishable food item. I watched as the salesperson blew with his mouth into paper bags in order to properly open the bags and wrap the sold items. This continued until I pointed out that in an Ebola state, he would have succeeded in distributing the virus to several homes. That got me thinking.

    In Nigeria, there are just too many casual acts and contacts that are so insanitary even the bacterial world are beginning to despair whether they will ever get to leave this country and try other lands. There are the casual handshakes. I could not have given or taken anything less than five during the week on reflex before remembering Ebola. There are the banisters we touch to assist weak bones to climb staircases. Then, the biggest of all, the exchange of goods that takes place thousands of times per second in this country. Hands touch while handbags are moving from one person to the other. Use antiseptic, you say? What about the thousands of God’s own tiny but deadly creatures which exchange homes in droplets of spittle when people speak to each other? Is there an antiseptic for that?

    There is no doubt that a little warning preparation would have saved us many agonies over this Ebola outbreak. True, there are some among us who would not bat an eyelid if the devil were to drive down hereabouts and told them personally to beware of a catastrophic epidemic coming from his kingdom. They would guffaw and go on sharing cups and needles.

    By and large though, the rest of us would have been grateful for that head-up from the ministry of health on the Ebola crisis. I know that the doctor and nurses at the clinic that tried to treat Sawyer would have. They could have been saved this agony and death. Now, I understand that some are dead and some are dying for doing the right thing. Sadly, reports from newspapers are saying that for doing their duties, the quarantined survivors of that Sawyer contact are being neglected and abandoned in filthy, unsanitary circumstances with no amenities. They are cut off from what used to be their world. Just imagine right now the psychological state they are in: the terror, confusion and mental turmoil they are roiling in. Imagine right now how much gratitude they have towards the country they served which is now giving them disservice. Imagine right now what prayers they are saying for the country. We could have saved them from going down this torturous path if our ministry of health had been working like it should. Their families have the right to demand an answer from this country in the law courts.

    The most dangerous reasoning so far on the matter of the nurse who escaped to her family from quarantine has come from our national officials. They say that because the nurse had not shown any signs of succumbing to the disease, her fellow travelers are not in any danger. Now, that is just so bizarre, because many of them could have touched what she touched; taken droplets from the air she breathed or from a cough or a sneeze from her innocently. And we say they are in no danger, or in danger of infecting others? How unutterably careless can we be?

    I think what everyone agrees on so far is the fact that we were not only not ready, we even now still lack the facilities that can sufficiently take care of victims; you know, something that indicates some attempt to keep in step with modern civilization. There we were, with our hospitals being no more than ‘mere consulting rooms’ as described thirty years ago, and we all are still in denial about it today. Over those thirty years, I cannot count the number of times doctors have gone on strike to impress on all, government and masses alike, that hospitals need to be equipped so that they would no longer stand by and watch people die because of one lack or the other. Unfortunately, whenever these calls have come, the typical response from government has been to display its fangs and threaten to tear all concerned to pieces. How indescribably inane!

    Rather than face issues of inadequacy in public hospitals, every group has been encouraged to fight for control of HOSPITALS THAT DON’T WORK! After all, it is well known that government officials do not use our hospitals around here – their families live abroad; their girlfriends and boyfriends shuttle in between. At government expense, all of them together use hospitals abroad that have been well funded, well equipped, well staffed with people who know their place in the system. Why, even when they want to die, they go to well-furnished hospitals in India or the West. Need I say more?

    So, why should they care what confusion may ensue in the nation’s hospitals? As it is now, I believe even Hospital Sanitation Engineers (Cleaners) can rise to take charge of the government hospitals. Now, our hospitals are still no more than consulting rooms, and the government hopes that doctors would call off their strike to rush to hospitals and treat the Ebola scare. It is even miffed that they have not! Pray, what protective equipment are doctors to use when they go back to these hospitals? What drugs are they to use? What insurance is there for them should they have incidental contacts with infectious diseases? And I am not talking about the emergency insurance offered by Lagos state in the heat of the moment. And what would happen if some of the over twenty thousand doctors and other hospital workers were to take Ebola home? Now, that is what I call calamitous.

    Sadly, we the public (including government) cannot see the scarcity of personnel or resources in our hospitals. All we can see is that doctors’ strikes have been too frequent. True, but I think it may be because we have failed to appreciate the dynamics of those call-outs: the reasons for their existence in the first place, the background, the processes, the personae, etc. No, it appears all we want to do is possibly teach those doctors who are not politicians a lesson. A story is told of how, a long time ago, a member of the public who was waiting to see a doctor during a lean period in the hospital, rejoiced when he heard that the government had dismissed all the doctors on strike.

    No, I am not biased, just irritated that we are not ordering our priorities right. Every sector is important in a serious economy, but in a growing one like ours, the most important ones demand that we put our money where our mouths are: education, health, industry, and the police system to keep us all in line. Sadly, the government appears to be allowing corruption to toy with them all. This is why we consider that the country is in serious trouble.

    I consider that the move to terminate the appointments of over sixteen thousand doctors at once in a country as seriously in trouble as this does not speak well of our politicians. If we think it is wrong for the doctors to refuse to resume work and help with the Ebola virus, the government’s action is a more massively wrong stroke. It is nothing but a giant wielding a big stick to fight an ant. If the government is not beating itself up for not acting on time on the Ebola virus, why is it now cudgeling doctors for asking for the right thing?

  • Ebola: Why Osun festival celebration will be low key-Commissioner

    THE celebration of this year’s edition of the annual Osun Osogbo festival would be low key as the state government has said it will not allow tourists from outside the State to participate in the event.

    The reason for the low key celebration is based on prevention of the spread  of Ebola virus disease in the state.

    Speaking at a press conference, the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Sunday Akere,  said the measure was necessary and in the interest of the people of the state.

    The commissioner called for the understanding of the people, particularly Osun worshipers and devotees as well as the traditionalists, saying their cooperation is a sacrifice they must pay for the well being of the residents of the State.

    However, he said in spite of the low key nature of this year’s Osun Festival, all traditional rites and sacrifices by the Osun devotees in Osogbo would be observed.

    He explained that the state government has restricted movements of non-residents of Osun, saying this would help to prevent the spread of the disease to the State.

    Akere informed that only traditional worshippers and well wishers who are resident in the State will be allowed to partake in the celebration of the Osun Festival to minimise bodily contacts among the people.

    He said: “We are determined to take all necessary steps to avert Ebola epidemics in our State. Consequently, scaling down this year’s celebration of the Osun Festival is a sacrifice we must make in order to prevent a crisis that will put human lives in jeopardy.”

  • Ebola: Migrant bats return to Benin

    Ebola: Migrant bats return to Benin

    Migrant bats have started to return to Benin City, the Edo State capital few weeks after the outbreak of the Ebola virus.

    The bats which nested in their thousands on trees at the Oba of Benin palace and surrounding trees around the city centre are also a delicacy for some persons.

    It was learnt that the bats started returning last week.

    A photographer, Stephen Idoni, runs a shop at the premises of the Oba Akenzua Cultural Centre. The shop is under a tree currently housing thousands of bats.

    Stephen told the Nation that the bats used to nest at what is now known as Ugbowo but said the bats have now moved to the city centre.

    He said he was not afraid of contacting Ebola virus from the bats nesting above his shop because the bats has been a source of meat to many persons.

    According to him, “Why will I be scared of these bats? I am too loaded with the Holy Spirit to contact Ebola. Ebola is an international witchcraft at work.”

    “It cannot happen to everybody. People used to come here to kill the bats and eat them. Those people are still alive. The white people are telling us stories. These bats started returning recently. We did not see them for some time now.”

    “I think they should find out what brought Ebola. If one bat fall down now, you will see somebody coming to take it.”

    Many of the bats were seen atop the tree.

  • Hypocrisy of America’s experimental Ebola drug

    Hypocrisy of America’s experimental Ebola drug

    These days, nothing strikes a bout of panic and paranoia than the thought of Ebola Virus Disease. It’s been decades since a disease or calamity of such proportions threatened our relationships, businesses, sports and our very existence.

    In the midst of all the trepidation came a ray of hope – an experimental secret serum, manufactured by California based Biopharmaceutical giant, Mapp. It has been administered to two Americans and a Spanish Priest (first European), all infected in Liberia. The Priest lost the battle against Ebola despite receiving the experimental solution after he was flown back to his country, Spain.

    However, the health of Dr Kent Brantly and missionary aid worker, Nancy Writebol, has improved tremendously to reinforce the efficacy of the drug, ZMapp. After the malady had claimed the lives of over a 1000 people in Africa with just about the same number presently inflicted with the disease, the American government in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), on compassionate grounds, sent experimental samples to Liberia for trials on Ebola patients.

    It is puzzling why over a thousand Africans had to die before talks of a vaccine hit the airwaves. It is safe to conclude that had the two Americans not contracted the virus we won’t be close to any drug of any sort. Before now, the research for a cure has been shrouded in secrecy by the Americans. That the ailment had no cure and is a fast moving outbreak gives a technical knockout to the argument of ethics – that the vaccine should first be tested on compatriots of the researchers and manufacturers in America.

    The laboratories of American pharmaceutical companies were not short of promising research experiments of vaccines or drugs. They weren’t eager to develop a vaccine if they aren’t sure who would buy it. With just over a thousand deaths, it’s just a blip compared to the mortality rate of other diseases. For instance, Malaria kills a child every minute. Compare the death rate of Malaria with other deadly diseases you’ll discover why GlaxoSmithKline and other Pharmaceutical giants are making billion dollar investments, researching and working day and night for vaccines for malaria.

    Ebola is horrifying, but it’s also sporadic — between the big 2001 outbreak and this one, only a few dozen people have gotten sick every year or two. The current outbreak has spread among a handful of poor countries that all have weak health infrastructure. America and the rest of the developed world knew the deadly disease had no known cure but since it has mainly being affecting only Africans in several outbreaks since 1976 it wasn’t worth any serious research investment.

    Ebola vaccine not the answer?

    But even if any of the drugs on trial works, it would be a stretch to say we could confidently use it to prevent another Ebola outbreak.  The experimental Ebola vaccine, ZMapp, or any other one for that matter, it appears might not even be the answer to the ravaging strain of the virus. A well-funded and researched vaccine would have done the magic like it was the case for smallpox and polio which put an abrupt end to outbreaks.

    The exigency of a cure for the scourge has made relevant authorities approve the use of some experiment solutions on compassionate grounds. Anyone receiving a rushed mass vaccine like this is putting an enormous amount of trust in Pharmaceutical companies and the government because there is no way to know the long term effects of the disease. It can’t be easily ascertained at the moment. The fears of its long term effect exist no matter how infinitesimal it might seem. The memory of all the kids, who now suffer from a severe form of narcolepsy due to the swine flu vaccine that was hurriedly created a few years ago, remains evergreen.

    Before we can say uhuru, the efficacy of such a drug should cut across the various strains of Ebola. The current outbreak is the Zaire virus, but previous outbreaks were Sudan and Cote d’Ivoire strains. The drugs being bandied about might not be the quintessential Ebola elixir that we crave. Most of the experimental drugs are solutions to fight the Zaire virus strain. These experimental drugs can kill the present virus in the body system and prevent it from infecting others but it does not in any way make us completely immune from the virus, that is, another outbreak.

    Containing the scourge would have been much easier with vaccination at the early stage of the outbreak; it is difficult to stop the epidemic in fast moving diseases like Ebola. According to Community Health professionals, most vaccines take a few weeks to provide immunity, and even then, they don’t always control the disease spread. A recent WHO statement submitted that even if any of the drug or vaccine is successful, it will take at least six months to contain the outbreak.

    During the early weeks of the pestilence, villagers in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea blocked streets, preventing doctors and health workers from gaining access to Ebola patients. This will pose a problem to vaccination if it eventually becomes available. We heard on good report that at a point, soldiers were deployed to hospitals to prevent locals from forcefully taking away Ebola patients. There are still remote villages and communities in Nigeria that resist polio vaccination. They see it as an unwarranted intrusion from the ‘white man’. Imagine what would happen if we tried to pre-emptively vaccinate thousands of people who not only are skeptical of Western medicine but have never heard of Ebola.

    Fighting the epidemic must involve a multi-pronged drug. ZMapp serum, other drugs from Canada and the one by some Nigerian doctors in the diaspora, focuses on eradicating the disease after infection. What the global community needs is a vaccine to prevent the infection from getting into the body, that is the development of antibodies within the subject rather than injecting them from outside the body.

    The serum is by no means the end of Ebola but it leads us away from ineffective containment of the deadly virus disease. The use of vaccine or drug might not be the fastest way we bring the spread of this highly infectious malady to a stop. Nevertheless, the Ebola story is not all gloomy as 40 percent of victims are surviving.

    For now, Ebola patients will jump at the chance to live free of the virus than worry about any side effects in the long term or another outbreak in the future.

    This is hoping that these limited doses of the vaccine will not distract and ultimately derail effort to curb the frenzied outbreak using tried, tested and true methods like rapid identification and isolation of the sick and providing basic supportive care for patients, finding and educating who’s been in contact with them and strict hospital infection control. With these, Ebola can slowly but surely be driven away.

     

    Follow the writer on twitter @tilevbare.

  • UN aims to feed 1million people hit by Ebola

    UN aims to feed 1million people hit by Ebola

    Dakar -The United Nations is to step up food aid to reach up to a million people affected by the Ebola outbreak wreaking havoc in West Africa, the World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday.

    With states of emergency and severe restrictions on movement imposed in the three worst-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the UN agency is bringing in its own aircraft to transport its personnel.

    “The restrictions on movement in the most affected areas threatens food security,” WFP spokeswoman Fabienne Pompey said. “Commerce is affected, people cannot get to their fields, and prices rise at the markets so the poorest have trouble feeding themselves.”

    The WFP is already feeding several thousand people in the worst affected areas, including the families of victims who have been quarantined, orphans and old people and hunters hit by the ban on the sale of bushmeat.

    With several commercial carriers suspending flights to the region because of the epidemic, she said the agency is starting up a special line on Saturday with an aircraft based in the Guinean capital Conakry to link the capitals of the three countries.

    She said two helicopters will also be brought in to help staff reach the most isolated areas.

  • Don’t mistake fever for Ebola, Ekiti warns residents

    Don’t mistake fever for Ebola, Ekiti warns residents

    The Ekiti State Government yesterday warned residents not to mistake common ailments such as chronic fever for the dreaded Ebola virus.

    The state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Olusola Fasuba, gave the advice at an awareness creation forum in Ado-Ekiti as a result of information currently making the rounds in the state that Ebola had hit some towns.

    He dispelled the rumour that a sick youth corps member posted to serve in the state had contacted the disease.

    According to him, although a male youth corps member collapsed at the orientation camp at Ise/Emure Ekiti, it was not true he had the dreaded Ebola virus.

    He also berated other corps members for abandoning their colleagues on the suspicion he had the virus.

    Fasuba disclosed that on learning of the development, he caused the sick boy to be attended to by a team of health workers who later discovered the boy had chronic fever.

    However, he said in order to be very sure of his correct state of health, his blood samples were taken and sent to Lagos, adding that the results which arrived the state on Thursday also indicated that he tested negative to Ebola.

    “The youth corps member has been removed from camp and is currently being kept at our isolated centre located within Oba Adejugbe General Hospital, Ado-Ekiti.

    “As I speak, I assure residents that the health of the boy in question is already improving while he continues to show signs of good health far from Ebola,” he said.

    The health commissioner, who warned rumour mongers to desist from spreading false information that could mislead or scare people, said government had taken some pro-active measures to prevent Ebola from spreading to the state.

    He listed some of such steps to include banning of movement of uncertificated dead bodies into the state, constitution of 30 technical committees as well as creation of three isolated centres in Ado-Ekiti, Okemesi-Ekiti and Ifaki-Ekiti.

  • Of madness and Ebola

    Of madness and Ebola

    The outbreak of the vicious, deadly and unsparing Ebola Virus Disease demonstrates, once again just how fragile, vulnerable, insecure and unpredictable human existence can be. Massive natural disasters can occur in an instant sending millions to an unanticipated grave. New diseases surface without notice to wreak havoc on humanity. Even human behaviour is unpredictable. Who knows when, where and how depraved terrorists will strike next on their impassioned mission of destruction? Remember 9/11. Remember the on-going tragedy of Chibok. It is the very unpredictability of the future that makes efficient organisation of society vital to human survival. Eternal vigilance through good, effective and competent governance is the only way for society to develop the capacity to respond decisively to contain unanticipated challenges. The Ebola threat also shows how interconnected humanity really is despite our diversity. That which unites us as a species is far more important than the things that divide us. We simply cannot afford not to be our brother’s keeper. Incompetent and careless governance anywhere can have negative implications for human existence everywhere. That is the crucial lesson being taught by the ruthless Ebola predator.

    Of course, I can understand President Goodluck Jonathan’s anger and exasperation when he described the Liberian, the late Patrick Sawyer, through whom the Ebola Virus was brought into Nigeria as a mad man. Many Nigerians will surely share this sentiment. After all, Sawyer knew he had the disease. He knew the implications of his travelling out of Liberia and the danger he posed to anyone he came in contact with. His action was thus deliberate. But then, can anybody be afflicted with such a venomous affliction and still retain his or her rationality? Confronted with such a predicament, an imminent appointment with death, will the human mind not become a whirlwind of incoherent, confused thoughts? Can anyone predict how he would react in the face of such a terrifying reality? But then, when we adjudge others as mad, we presume that we are sane. But is our assumed sanity, many times, not difficult to distinguish from the presumed madness of others? Let me explain.

    We have all known for some time that some West African countries including Liberia were hit by the Ebola epidemic. There had been reports of hundreds of deaths in those countries. We knew that Nigeria, particularly her major commercial centres, is a prime destination for people across West Africa. What anticipatory steps did we take to protect our people against the invasion of the virus? Why were our immigration officers and health workers not placed on red alert and measures taken to screen entrants into the country, especially from vulnerable nations, for the virus? As Mr Femi Kusa wrote in his column in this newspaper on Thursday, “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”. But I speak here not just of a failure of governance at all levels. Rather, it is a collective failure of society including the media. Why, for instance, did leading columnists, editorialists or public affairs analysts fail to sensitise government and the general public to the dangers posed by Ebola long before now? We are all complicit. This kind of suicidal complacency and laxity is a more dangerous form of madness than that exhibited by the late Sawyer.

    But then was Patrick Sawyer’s trip to Nigeria a spontaneous and irrational act of madness? If his widow is to be believed, he carefully and rationally calculated and planned his trip to Nigeria. According to her “He didn’t tell me this, but I know in my heart of hearts that Patrick was determined to get to Nigeria by all means because he felt that Nigeria would be a place of refuge…Patrick went to Nigeria for help so that he can get properly diagnosed and not misdiagnosed in Liberia. And if it came back that he did have Ebola, he trusted the Nigerian health care system a lot more than he trusted Liberia’s…Patrick didn’t want to die and he thought his life would be saved in Nigeria”.

    Well, some may see this as the biased rationalisations of a mourning wife. But Mrs Sawyer’s submissions raise some pertinent questions. Patrick Sawyer was an American citizen. His wife and daughters live in the US. He knew that the US has a superior healthcare system to Nigeria’s and would probably have preferred to go there. But he also probably knew that he did not have the slightest chance of gaining entry into the US in his condition. The US system had put in place effective measures to protect its citizens against Ebola and other killer plagues. But he obviously reckoned that he could easily beat Nigeria’s lax system and was proved right after all. There was a method to his madness. If he had not physically taken ill at the airport, the ailing man would have simply walked through the various check points and disappeared into thin air – a veritable mobile weapon of mass destruction.

    Yes, I am aware that Sawyer was rushed to the hospital at Obalende from the airport and it was only later that he was diagnosed as suffering from Ebola Virus fever. But if the relevant agencies and the general public had been sufficiently sensitised as regards the danger of Ebola and anticipatory measures put in place, there would have been greater vigilance and caution in handling this case in the interest of public safety.The very fact that Sawyer was Liberian and ill should have triggered an alarm in the system right from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport leading to greater caution on the part of all that would have probably saved the lives now needlessly lost and others that are still endangered. Those with him on the flight would have been better tracked and monitored rather than being allowed to simply disperse in different unknown directions.

    However, there is absolutely nothing irrational about the late Sawyer expecting Nigeria to have a better and more effective healthcare system than Liberia. Given Nigeria’s abundant natural and human resources, there is no reason why the country should not have a world-class health care system that would offer hope and succour to her own people and those of less endowed African countries. Until we get rid of the current impunity and disregard for the rule of law that erodes the country’s immunity against monumental corruption and gross irresponsibility in public office, the Nigerian state will not develop the capacity to effectively protect its citizens from the vagaries of existence in our dangerous world. The virus of impunity is to the Nigerian state what Ebola is to the human body. It is the more urgent ‘madness’ that must be checked if we are not to continue to be the victims of the ‘madness’ of the Patrick Sawyers of this world.

  • Ebola: Chidi Mokeme’s theme of thought

    Ebola: Chidi Mokeme’s theme of thought

    SINCE the Ebola virus disease found its way into Nigerian soil, there have been varied reactions from different quarters. While some blame the Nigerian authorities for allowing emigration from infected countries, others blame the late Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian, for deliberating embarking on a journey into the country, when he knew he was carrying the virus in his system.

    This becomes even more pronounced when one of the nurses, who treated Sawyer, escaped quarantine, infecting about 20 more people with the virus, including her husband.

    Nollywood actor, Chidi Mokeme, is not exactly the vocal type. But in this case, a stream of tweets from the actor shows that he is not finding the nurse’s action funny. Whether by way of humour or out of plain parody, Mokeme has suggested that repeat offenders should face a death sentence.

    On Thursday, he wrote, via his Twitter handle: “If you are a primary or secondary Ebola suspect and you escape from quarantine, you are a suicidal mass murderer and WMD (weapon of mass destruction). Yes? #Shootatsight.

    “Escaping from an Ebola quarantine camp should be a criminal offence. Yes?”

    “U.S. doctor puts himself in quarantine, Naija nurse escapes from quarantine! Same situation! Different reactions, orientation! Something wrong!

    “Escaping from an Ebola quarantine camp should be a criminal offence. Yes? That’s Ebola terrorist. Kill on site, ASAP.”

    In another cheering news, a Nigerian scientist in the Diaspora is said to have produced an experimental drug called Nanosilver for the treatment of Ebola. The medication, it is said, will arrive the country in a couple of days. Also, Liberia has taken delivery of Zmapp, a trial vaccine from the U.S.