Ebolaphobia is the new term in town as panic has swept
through Nigeria and beyond in the wake of the lethal virus. The campaign has
seen so much twists and turns such that the fear of the disease is causing more
harm than the disease itself. But from all we have heard and seen in the past
few weeks, to doubt the existence of ebola will be the height of stupidity. It
is real and it kills and everyone should take all precautionary measures
suggested by health organisations.
That being said, there are still so many confusing angles on
the disease that need clarification. Are we talking about the same highly
contagious ebola virus that was first discovered in Congo in 1976? If so, how
did it disappear only to resurface with a big-bang 38 years later? Did they find
the cure in 1976? If they did, how is it that there’s no more cure for it
today? Let’s say they didn’t find the cure back in 1976, but how was it
contained? Why can’t they apply the same method to the present outbreak? Isn’t
it weird how this supposedly highly contagious virus went dormant and made a
perfectly timed comeback 38 years later, just about the same time an American
pharmaceutical company developed a secret serum for it?
Are they saying that the Congolese that were infected in 1976
didn’t mingle with families or other natives in their communities? Or were they
diagnosed the same minute they got infected and isolated immediately for
quarantine before they could hug, kiss or make love to their wives and mingle
with others? Can somebody please fill in these gaps for me?
Why are they causing panic with this disease? Who benefits
from this pandemonium? We are not the same stone-age Africans, so they should
come up with a better marketing strategy for their drugs. This is just the same
template that was used in marketing AIDS. We need something better and more
convincing. We are already too familiar with this same hysterics, this same
“OMG”, the world is coming to an end and we are all going to die formula.
Hasn’t HIV/AIDS virus been here for over 40 years now and has the world ended?
They are marketing ebola like the 3D version of AIDS and
again we are all running helter skelter, scared of touching anything or anybody
in the process. We can contract the ebola virus from a doorknob, a hand shake,
or touching a contaminated body fluid. But can everybody please calm down for a
minute and let’s reason this issue properly? because we might all actually end
up dying from panic instead of the real deal.
I am trying to think out here, if there’s truly no cure for
ebola, then what are all the foreign aid workers still doing at those clinics
where they are at risk of contracting the same virus with a 99.9% mortality
rate? Well maybe they knew from the outset that they would be flown back to
America and get cured with a secret serum.
Ebola is a contagious disease, but if it is that contagious
as we are being made to believe, one would expect the whole of Congo to have
been wiped off the earth by now. Africans live in a communal system where
everybody hugs, kisses, shakes hands and shares almost everything from buckets
to bathrooms and latrines.
W.H.O. has come out screaming that ebola is not airborne but
the Canadian Public Health Department says ebola can be airborne because if a
person coughs or sneezes or vomits, some of the droplets with the virus travel
through the air. So whose report do we believe?
How do we define “contact” in the ebola context, if it
spreads only by bodily fluids? Did the 70 people on the flight with Mr. Sawyer
the Liberian diplomat actually touch his body fluids? Did they touch his vomit,
faeces or sweat? Did he sneeze on them? How did they come into contact with
him? So much conflicting talks of how ebola kills but none is clear on exactly
how individuals can be really exposed. Health officials need to fill in the
blanks. The ignorance of the situation and the panic it is causing will
eventually kill more people than the virus itself.
We were bamboozled and sent scampering when they discovered
AIDS, but the same smart individuals who discovered and christened it HIV/AIDS
decided in all smartness that an anti retro-viral suppressant is more essential
to victims than a permanent cure. They have made us aware that a permanent cure
to AIDS would be against their interest. They have created a sick world where
the strong prey on the weak and the intelligent few thrive on the ignorance of
others. The same smart guys that invented computer virus got celebrated for
inventing the anti virus.
Now another set of smart thinking individuals and their
pharmaceutical companies are about to have a fat pay cheque with their newly
invented ebola vaccines. Panicked Nigerians are already getting fleeced with
fake ebola hand sanitisers. Whenever a pharmaceutical company wants to push a
new drug, they come out with a new disease or enhance the potency of an old one
with their media machine.
These pharmaceutical companies know that in population, Lagos
is the size of most American cities and Nigeria is more than half the size of
the US, that Nigerians will be scared knowing that if ebola gets a foothold
here, the body count will make the kwashiorkor epidemic of the Biafran war look
like a cupcake. And therefore we will automatically grab the $200m Intervention
Fund from the World Bank. After which their health arm will voluntarily
introduce the cure for ebola to our shores and save the day. For Christ’s sake,
how much longer will this continue?
How many people will have to die before the rest of the world
finally gets off its duff and stop using Africa as a guinea pig for every new
medical invention? They say Africa has found it pretty hard to buy her way out
of ignorance. Is the $200m thrown at ebola supposed to change the same ignorant
and superstitious Africa?
This same attitude of throwing money at Africa is precisely
what guarantees the spread of diseases. And if ignorant locals are the reason
the virus became an outbreak, haven’t “The big AIDS and how to get it campaign”
been in effect in America and beyond for decades already? So how is it that the
spread of ebola in Africa is being blamed on ignorant locals? Something stinks
here, and someone is going to have to cough up the truth before it’s too late.
Please we all should be very careful as we go about our daily
affairs and adhere to all safety measures prescribed by health authorities. The
cure for ebola will be found soon, if it’s not already cooling off in the
vaults of a lab somewhere. The disease is predictably going out of control
because of the panic surrounding it. By choosing to heighten its effects, we
are only rolling the dice, instead of taking matters into our own hands.
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