Within the past week there has been a lot of chatter in the news and on social media about the Ebola virus in spreading from the villages in Guinea to the capital Conakry and that this plague may have spread to Sierra Leone. Countries like Mauritania and Senegal have taken the necessary pre-emptive measure of sealing off their borders whilst in Sierra Leone there is nothing but a lot of preaching and talking going on. The Minister of Health and Sanitation, the Chief Medical Officer and the Director of Disease Control have all been on the airwaves telling people there is nothing to worry about as there is yet any confirmed cases of the virus in Sierra Leone. But then the Chief Medical Officer went on to tell people not to eat dead monkeys and bats as they are the main source of the Ebola virus. I have been with hunters in the 1980s and have seen chimpanzees and other monkey species being shot and dissected and none of the people having ever contracted HIV as a result. Having grown up in the East end of Freetown in the 70s and 80s we killed a lot of fruit bats as we considered them a pest that was eating up our mangoes in the area at the time. We used catapults and used to hit them with stones to bring them down with blood coming out of their nostrils. This is something I personally participated in for over ten years and never contracted any infection in the process. The only dead primates I have ever seen in all my life are the ones that were either shot or caught in snares laid by villagers. Monkeys also do die in captivity but this very rarely happens as only fewer people keep monkeys as pets. The chances of anyone finding a dead monkey in the bush just like that are very slim indeed and I wonder where the officials got the information about dead monkeys. The same applies to the fruit bats that get killed either with catapults or through electrocution when they latch on to high tension electric cables when they try to find something to hang on to. And for anyone to tell me that dead primates are the actual source of the Ebola virus is one story that I will consider a hard sell as the chances of a human ever finding a dead primate just like that is nil. Nature has its own way of disposing of all animals in the wild- they get devoured by other animals. The ‘Senior Health’ officials are telling the public that people who have died of the Ebola virus should be buried safely but have they trained anyone as to how this safe burial process should be carried out without the risk of anyone become the next casualty? With the border posts to Guinea still open and government officials sitting at Youyi building and telling people all is well shouldn’t the emphasis be on prevention rather than teaching people how to safely dispose of the dead? And with the epicentres of this plague being all areas bordering Guinea shouldn’t government officials be holding their briefings in these areas conducting a massive public awareness program rather than sitting in Youyi building and talking to the press as most people do not even have any means of finding out what is going on? There are only three main routes through which diseases or harmful substances enter the body and there ingestion, absorption and inhalation. And this applies to every kind of diseases out there. But there is in Health and Safety something known as the Basic Principles of Prevention. Firstly you IDENTIFY the Hazard which basically is anything with the potential to cause harm or adverse health effect on a person(s). In this case the hazard is the plague known as the Ebola virus on Sierra Leone’s door step which is half of the land areas bordering Guinea. Secondly you evaluate the risks to the health of the people and this risk is really deadly as anyone who catches that disease faces a certain and agonising death. Thirdly you try to tackle the danger at the source to try and eliminate it. No it cannot be eliminated but control measures can be put in place to try and contain this plague. This means the borders both land and sea should be sealed to prevent people travelling back and forth. This is how you minimise the risk by having the areas under strict quarantine and all human traffic either severely curtailed or halted until further notice depending on the gravity of the situation. Most importantly every minute detail should be documented as a kind of reference point for any future outbreaks so that the response whenever it happens will be far better coordinated than the previous one. Then everything should be reviewed so that there can be a better understanding of the situation And there must be in place a massive mobilisation program to sensitise the population and not sit at Youyi building telling people to bury safely anyone that die of the virus. First people are told there is no confirmed case of anyone having died of Ebola as of last week, and then people are told to bury anyone that died of the disease safely. Senegal and Mauritania have all taken the first steps of sealing off their borders with Guinea but to date no such action has been taken in Sierra Leone. Is the government waiting for the dead bodies to pile up I wonder because a lot of people will die once this disease does get transferred over from Guinea.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 23:41:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015