EBOLA: AFRICAN DEADLY DISEASE

File: Medics carrying an Ebola victim. The disease has killed close to 1000 people in West Africa.

THE WORLD LARGEST EBOLA OUTBREAK IN HISTORY

The recent outbreak of the most deadly disease, Ebola, in West Africa has rekindled a heated debate among the medics around the world with World Health Organization (WHO) is yet to declare it a world epidemic. The disease, which its history is routed in Africa especially among the countries at the Sub-Saharan region, has claimed approximately 1400 people since it was first reported in 1976.

Ebola was named after Ebola River in Zaire (the current Democratic Republic of Congo). In 1976 it killed approximately 500 people in both Sudan and Zaire.

Of late, the countries which are highly affected by the disease have reported approximately 1000 people dead and close to the same number infected. Among the countries which are highly affected include Sierra Leon, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

The disease is spread via a body fluid or blood. The disease, in the way it is spread from one person to the other, is almost the same as the way HIV virus is spread. It is proven that monkeys can spread to human beings just the way they spread HIV.  Fruit bats can also spread and surprisingly, they do spread and they are not infected. There is no specific treatment for the disease; efforts to help persons who are infected include giving slightly sweet and salty water to drink. The effort to develop the vaccine is ongoing.

File: a person suffering from Ebola.

Back to the main story, several countries across the world have issued travel advisories to their citizens who intend to visit West African countries where the disease has been reported. However Kenya airlines are still flying to the region despite the global warning by World Health Organization that the Ebola status in the West Africa currently has surpasses any other outbreak in Ebola history.

Kenya airways officials say they have put measures in place to gag the entrance of the disease to Kenya, however, it is important to note that Ebola virus can enter the body of an individual and cannot be detected for a period of three weeks and one can easily fly and land in Kenya and later on infect the people one is living with. Though the medics are saying one can only be infected when he/she comes in contact with the blood or fluid of an infected person, the risk of exposure by the infected person to unaffected individual is high especially in Kenya where people are ignorant of the disease. It is, however, not easy to contain the spread of the disease whose cure has not been established.

The best way to prevent the spread of the virus is imposition of quarantine. This will disadvantaged the infected people because at the end of the day they will die. It is estimated that the disease can kill 85% of the people infected and one can only be saved if one is found to have contacted the disease within the past few days. In a scenario where someone is bedridden, one has a zero chance of surviving.

In Nigeria, one person was reported to have died some few days after landing on the airport and the Nigerian government had put the measures in place to prevent the entrance of the disease in the country. If Nigerian government could not control the entrance of the disease to its country and it is the current Africa’s largest economy, how about Kenya who lacks even mechanisms to use to prevent physical catastrophes like terrorism, drugs, fire? Kenya should not be lead by greed of money to an extend it can sacrifice the lives of the people. The health personnel working in the airports should be vigilant and anyone who intends to fly from West Africa to Kenya should produce his/her health records of the past three weeks and that will help to prevent the disease from entering Kenya.

It is also important to note that the disease, since its first outbreak in 1976, has affected only African countries. The disease has never been reported in other continents of the world other than Africa. Could it be laboratory-made disease to reduce world population especially African population by European? The scandal mongers said the rationale behind less effort to produce medicine or vaccine for HIV/AIDS, is the disease to reduce world population. Aids infection is widespread in African countries and of late the European and Western nations have reported few cases. Remember HIV virus is a laboratory-made. It is the same thing with deadly Ebola: it has killed Africans alone.