EBOLA: LACK OF INFORMATION IS OUR ENEMY

It is not mere coincidence that there is an Ebola epidemic in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Actually, there are many other crises ravaging those countries. I am dead certain before there was Ebola there was insufficient hygiene. It is nearly certain there were inadequate healthcare services. Worse of all there was a public waiting for disasters of all types to attack but without the least skills and orientation to handle them.

In my part of the world, and no doubt in much of Africa, the choice response for disaster is to raise alarm and run away. The traditional war cry in the middle of the night is no longer a call for men to gather and confront the enemy. It is a call for men to gather their possessions and kin for the sole purpose of fleeing. There are reports of health workers abandoning their posts and governments failing to respond in time. It does not help that the three countries are recovering from war. 

Certainly the three states are probably the least prepared for this type of disaster.

However, it is the lack of preparedness among many African communities that raises risk during disaster. Before there is government or health-worker there is community. Our first line of defense is the community. It is the individual on the precipice that is our best hope. How they respond to extraordinary circumstance pretty much determines how the rest of us will fare. Perhaps Ebola is the worst thing to happen to poor African communities. But their poverty is not- as the media are wont to show- material. Our poverty is one of knowledge and information.

Firefighting: The typical response strategy to emergencies in Africa

An informed community is the best hope during disease outbreaks. Our best hope is not fully equipped hospitals with highly trained personnel. These can be parachuted in much like the fire engine with sirens blazing. It is the safeguards already in place that will tame the fire before the firemen get to the scene.

There have been reports of communities demanding bodies of their loved ones to give them decent burials. Indeed there was much debate on one online forum as to whether the prominent Sierra Leonean medic Dr Sheik Khan-who died of Ebola- had received an appropriate burial. The truth is- in the face of Ebola social norms and practices have to be varied radically. This is the message communities must embrace.

Fifty years of independence and another fifty of colonialism must have softened African hearts. Not too long ago leprosy patients were abandoned in forests with just a few comforts as they awaited certain death. The illness was believed to be a contagious curse. Today, communities cannot make the hard decisions required to combat an even more contagious illness. They hide victims and demand to perform religious rites on bodies. I am not in any way suggesting we abandon victims. I am merely saying we must act in the right way. The right way is the way of science.

True, the science with reference to treating Ebola is still experimental. However, it should be honed into our communities through regular training that we can minimize the risk of epidemics. Furthermore, we can also minimize the scale of the epidemic through responsible action. Perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to us is the orientation of our education system towards wage employment only.

School does not prepare Africans for life in Africa. It equips many of us with a lofty view of how things should be. Even in a country where there is one doctor for every two hundred thousand, school does not take time to teach basic first aid.

We are not given basic information on how to assist in delivery even though many of us are born on the earthen floor of our village huts. So when things go amiss it is up to ignorant witchdoctors or the elderly birth attendant to chart the waters. That there is need to incorporate these caregivers in training and reorientation has never been of much interest to most African governments. They would probably be the whistleblowers urging communities to respond correctly to public health disasters.

As it is we are all at risk. Modern transportation means the disease can fly right across the continent in hours. Some countries have responded by banning flights to the worst hit countries. Others have banned overland crossing from the affected countries. I am yet to hear of one country that has banned consumption of game meat even though this is the most probable cause of the current outbreak.

Policing such a ban when we have not put in place basic controls on the consumption and trade of game meat is impossible. Even as we concentrate on human incubators of the illness infected bats and animals are free to cross borders. Here again, our best defense is an informed public.
 Ebola:Basic Facts on Prevention