Okechukwu Emeh, Jr
The fear from this worst-even Ebola outbreak is heightened by the fact that the virus is mentioned among the most deadly emerging and re-emerging diseases, which infectious-disease specialists tagged “the 12 apocalypes”. Others of the same genre, whose spread could get worse in the future and portend a public health threat if not checked, are Avian Flu, Babesiosis, cholera, parasites, Lyme disease, plague, red tides, Rift Valley Fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis (TB) and yellow fever. Recent disturbing statistics, for example, indicated that about 1.5 million people around the world died of TB in 2013.
Fears are also mounting about the potential of the Ebola virus as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), just as the lethal pathogens of other highly contagious diseases like small pox, anthrax, plague, botulism and tularemia. In fact, there is growing concern in many quarters, including the UN and Western countries, that the virus could be cultured in a laboratory for the purpose of producing biological weapons by rogue states or fringe criminal elements like terrorists. It is instructive that modern unconventional arsenal contains viral or bacterial weapons, with microbes cultured and refined, or weaponised, to increase their ability to kill. Unlike a bacterial attack, antibiotics are not usually effective against pathogen with haemorrhagic fever agents (including Ebola, lassa and bubonic plague). Thus, the major trepidation about the arms race in this post-Cold War order, which has somehow declined since the East-West reconciliation in 1989, is no longer about the deployment of nuclear and chemical weapons in the event of conflict. Rather, it is about the possibility of the use of biological weapons, which are difficult to control but relatively easy to produce. This is small wonder President Barrack Obama of the US, whose country designated the Ebola virus as a category A bio-germ weapon, has described the current outbreak of the disease as a national security threat with potential to destabilise volatile part of the world.
Thankfully, the international community has mobilised both human and material resources on a massive scale to combat and arrest the spread of the EVD. Giving another cause for hope amid the fears about this deadly scourge of our age was the recent certification of Senegal and Nigeria by the WHO as being free from the virus after 42-day benchmark of no incidence of the case. However, this clean bill of health calls on the two countries not to be overwhelmed by euphoria over such feats but to remain fully alert by maintaining necessary precautionary and preventive measures against the disease, which could make a comeback through international travels and infected animals. Thus, in the words of the WHO while congratulating Nigeria for its spectacular success story in curbing the spread of the EVD, “such countries have won a battle against Ebola, the war will only truly end when West Africa, Africa and the world are declared free of Ebola”. For other countries, especially those in the throes of the Ebola epidemic like Liberia and Sierra Leone, they should rely on better and faster testing with a view to saving lives and bringing an end to the outbreak. This is imperative because based on the recent fearful projection by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if the international community fails to increase the existing efforts to stop the alarming spread of the epidemic significantly and immediately, it could infect about 1.4 million people at the heart of the outbreak in West Africa by January next year, as well as spill over into other parts of Africa with porous borders and weak health care infrastructure. Already, the Ebola virus was reported recently to have entered neighbouring Mali where it killed one infected victim.
Also holding the light at the end of the tunnel of the current Ebola crisis are the reports that substantial progress has been made by several top-flight universities and pharmaceutical companies in the US, Canada, the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and the rest to produce effective drugs – a kind of ZMapp and plasma – for the treatment of the victims of the disease. At the same time, the WHO has raised hopes that the trial vaccines that will trigger the production of necessary anti-bodies in humans against the EVD are being produced from the serum made from the blood of recovered patients and will be tested in West Africa in January next year.
However, if there is any important lesson from the ongoing Ebola crisis, it is the urgent necessity of injecting a new lease of life into the comatose public health sector in Africa, where about 24 outbreaks of the epidemic have been reported since 1976. Expectedly, this would require more funding of primary health care systems and centres for disease control and prevention, along with recruitment of additional health workers who will be well-trained, well-equipped, well-paid and well-motivated. On the part of the developed world of Europe, North America and Asia South Pacific, they should help African states to revive their ailing health sector, just as Cuba and China, which are actively involved in the Ebola emergency operations in West Africa, have exemplary done. This is crucial because any threat of deadly and contagious disease somewhere is a threat to human safety elsewhere, especially considering that we now live in a world where countries, regardless of their remoteness are all connected by the air we breathe, the food we eat and by international travels.
So, the developed world, in concert with the WHO, should be helpful in strengthening the health care systems of poor African countries by giving support in the vital areas of staff capacity building, development of new medicines, better sexual reproductive health services and subsidisation of medical bill for killer diseases like cancer, cardiac problem, kidney failure, diabetes, AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis. They should also assist in reversing the grim scenario in the health sector in many parts of Africa, as made egregious in inadequate coverage and access to basic health services like maternal, infant and child health, a predilection towards curative services and health policy framework that do not pay sufficient attention to primary health care, lack of requisite drugs and health care facilities. Advanced countries should equally help poor African states in ensuring that public health is prioritised with the overall national development plan and articulating health strategies that respond to the diverse and changing policy-making and accountability, as well as attracting the support of donor community in the areas of providing clean water supply and sanitisation, which are critical to healthy living.
It is impossible to conclude without stating that despite the global panic about the present Ebola outbreak, this re-emerging public health emergency cannot wipe out humans from the face of the earth. This is mindful that humankind never solves any of its nagging problems, whether deadly disease, violent conflict, terrorism, political oppression, social injustice, inequality, abject poverty, hunger or natural disaster, but rather outlives them. Accordingly, the human community will not merely survive with a sense of resilience but will overcome agonising challenges like the EVD with the ennobling spirit of cooperation and solidarity.
Emeh, a social researcher, sent this piece from Abuja. okemehjr@yahoo.com
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