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EBOLA is a deadly disease with no known cure and a fatality rate of more than 50 percent; it needs to be taken seriously and precautions need to be taken. But that said, there is no reason to panic or make stupid statements based on either the sensible precautions taken to prevent it or even worse on wild rumour. In Zimbabwe, we have had both, although we have yet to have a confirmed case and since we are on alert there is no way a confirmed case could be hidden; the World Health Organisation would release the details within hours of confirmation.
Zimbabwe, like many other countries and especially African countries, has taken steps to ensure that Ebola does not reach us or, if an infected person lands here, then that person is properly treated in adequate isolation so that no other Zimbabwean is infected.
We need to remember that Ebola does not spread through the air; it requires body contact with fluids from an infected person or corpse. You could probably sit next to an infected person and be safe so long as you had no closer contact and our precautions are based on this. These precautions work.
The present outbreak in three West African countries is worrying and is a disaster for those three countries. But their neighbours are on maximum alert and have so far managed to avoid similar outbreaks. Only one neighbour, Senegal, has recorded a single case and that visitor was identified promptly and whisked into a proper ward and is being treated without exposing others to risk. There was no outbreak in Senegal.
Nigeria has recorded 20 cases, all arising from a single infected visitor, thanks to some sloppiness over controls at the beginning. But WHO reckons the outbreak there is contained and Nigeria is now taking proper precautions. The other outbreak, unrelated to the West African outbreak, is in rural northwest DRC and the government there has it contained, as it contained other small outbreaks in rural DRC before and it will soon be over.
Even if an infected person arrives in Zimbabwe, the precautions we are now taking would mean that this person could not cause an epidemic. At worst they could infect a single household.
The sort of precautions we are taking are the same that have kept the neighbours of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea basically free of Ebola and have prevented it spreading across the rest of West Africa.
If Nigeria had a similar plan in place a couple of months ago the outbreak in that country would have been limited to one or two people, just as was seen recently in Texas when an infected visitor infected just one Texan.
All the scare stories in Zimbabwean media have originated from our precautions. If we have someone coming from a country with an outbreak we check, and we keep checking for the full 21 days of incubation.
These people are not suspected cases, they are people who have been in a country where there is Ebola and we are simply ensuring that if the worst came to the worst there would be no outbreak, just a sick person being given proper treatment.
Even the one case where a test was needed was handled with maximum precautions, so that we would have avoided any spread. We would have had a sick Zimbabwean in hospital receiving proper care under a regime where no one else would be infected. One sick traveller is not an outbreak.
Having policemen on the street does not mean we have a crime wave; it means we are taking precautions to stop crime.
It is the same with our precautions against Ebola. We do not want an outbreak and we have taken some serious steps to ensure that we do not get one.
We are being smart and people should not muddle intelligent steps with an outbreak of the disease.
Online Reporter