EBOLA OUTBREAK: WHOSE FAULT?

by Ogundimu Omolabake

Until the entry of Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian Ebola victim, into Nigeria, most Nigerians who rely on the local media to educate them about the news of the wider world did not know about the existence of Ebola, the everyday Nigerian person knew next to nothing about Ebola, its symptoms, ways of detecting it and preventing it or the contagious rate of the virus. The death of Patrick in Lagos, Africa's most populous city, had health workers scrambling to trace those who may have been exposed to him across West Africa, including flight attendants and fellow passengers and with the help of the unprepared Nigerian government they sought to curtail the spread of the virus and educate Nigerians about the deadly virus.

The risk of contracting Ebola is considered low because it requires direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, sweat or saliva, experts say. Patients are contagious only once the disease has progressed to the point they show symptoms, according to World Health Organization (WHO). And the most vulnerable are health care workers and relatives who come in much closer contact with the sick. Most Nigerians didn't know this in the early days of the detection of the virus and they made false assumptions and passed wrong information about the virus believing that Ebola could be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air and some even devised homemade remedies; such as bathing with and drinking hot water and salt to reduce their susceptibility to the disease, others refused to shake hands, hug or engage in any sort of body contact with people around them.

Patrick Sawyer died after becoming noticeably ill on a flight from Liberia, where the worst ever outbreak of Ebola is gathering pace, to the city of Lagos in Nigeria. His case sparked alarm across the globe because he was able to board an international flight while carrying the incurable disease, potentially infecting other passengers who could fly across the world in a nightmare scenario for health experts.

Questions have being raised over whether the Liberian government could have prevented the entry of Ebola into Nigeria, if they had knowledge of Patrick Sawyer's condition they could have seized his international passport to prevent the further spread of the Ebola outside the borders of their country. Some see their negligence as a mischievous attempt to spread the virus to Nigeria and believe that the Nigerian government should take sanction against them.

The Nigerian government have also being blamed based on their level of unpreparedness for the entry of the deadly virus into the country. Ebola had first being detected in the 90's but came into Nigeria june, 2014 and it had caused almost a thousand deaths in countries including Liberia and Sierra Leone. Prior to the entry of Ebola into the country, the Nigerian government didn't make any move to educate its citizens and prepare its health sector for an emergency situation despite the presence of the deadly virus in West Africa.         

Presently the front page of Nigerian newspapers are filled with different stories on Ebola while the television I'd filled with campaign after campaign to educate Nigerians and separate myths from facts. If all this had being done prior to the entry of the virus into the country maybe it would have gone a long way in preventing casualties. The media's efforts to educate and sensitize the nation can easily be dismissed as 'Campaign after election'.

Nigerians has been banned from entering countries because of this deadly virus, what is required now is that government focus seriously on the disease instead the government has chosen this time to fire up to 16,000 doctors. The government needs to upgrade its public enlightenment and education programme about Ebola disease as many ignorant Nigerians have killed themselves quicker than the virus itself as they scramble for salt-water bath and drinking “remedy”. The government should not only provide laboratory and testing facilities for people who have contacted this virus but should also equip the place properly both with doctor and quarantines, and also reduce the spread of disease by encouraging Nigerian citizen to always sanitize themselves and report to hospitals if symptoms of this virus shows rather than hide it to avoid stigmatization.

The government should also curtail the information dissemination of the local media as most information disseminated by them has only heightened the fear about this Ebola outbreak.