Category: News & Politics

WHO declares Liberia Ebola-free

A man walks past an Ebola campaign banner in Monrovia. (Pic: AFP)
A man walks past an Ebola campaign banner in Monrovia. (Pic: AFP)

The UN health agency on Saturday declared Liberia Ebola-free, hailing the “monumental” achievement in the west African country where the virus has killed more than 4 700 people.

“The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia is over,” the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement, adding that 42 days had passed since the last confirmed case was buried.

That period is double the number of days the virus requires to incubate, and WHO hailed its eradication as an enormous development in the long crisis.

“Interruption of transmission is a monumental achievement for a country that reported the highest number of deaths in the largest, longest, and most complex outbreak since Ebola first emerged in 1976,” it said.

The declaration was a source of both great pride to Liberians who had been stalked by the deadly virus they simultaneously sought to battle.

“We are out of the woods. We are Ebola free. Thanks to our partners for standing with us in the fight against Ebola. We are Liberians,” tweeted Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown.

The news was also cheered by international organisations like the Red Cross, Unicef and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), as well as officials from the US and European Union.

However whailing the “important marker” White House spokesman Josh Earnest, in a statement, said: “The world must not forget that the Ebola outbreak still persists in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea.

“We must not let down our guard until the entire region reaches and stays at zero Ebola cases.”

Relief and sorrow

The WHO warned that because the Ebola outbreaks were continuing in neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, the risk remained high that infected people could re-enter the country.

Because of that risk, MSF also tempered its applause of the declaration with reminders that the crisis will not be over for any one nation until the virus has been eradicated everywhere.

For average Liberians, the development was a source of both relief and sorrow.

“I lost a brother in the Ebola crisis so I am happy and sad,” said 40 year-old Monrovia taxi driver Nyaningo Kollie.

During the two months of peak transmission last August and September the capital Monrovia was the setting for “some of the most tragic scenes from West Africa’s outbreak: gates locked at overflowing treatment centres, patients dying on the hospital grounds, and bodies that were sometimes not collected for day,” noted WHO official Alex Gasasira, who read the organisation’s statement Saturday.

At the height of the crisis in late September Liberia was suffering more than 400 new cases a week, with uncollected and highly infectious bodies piling up in the streets of Monrovia, a sprawling, chaotic city at the best of times.

The health system – embryonic before the crisis, with some 50 doctors and 1 000 nurses for 4.3 million people – was devastated, losing 189 health workers out of 275 infected.

“At one point, virtually no treatment beds for Ebola patients were available anywhere in the country,” Gasasira recalled.

Schools remained shut after the summer holidays, unemployment soared as the formal and black-market economies collapsed and clinics closed as staff died and non-emergency healthcare ground to a halt.

And then, as suddenly as it had spread, Ebola retreated.

‘Thank all Liberians’

Liberia, which had recorded 389 deaths in one week in October alone, saw fatality counts dropping below 100 within weeks, and into single figures by the start of 2015.

During a WHO-hosted ceremony Saturday in the Ebola crisis cell in Monrovia, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf saluted her fellow citizens and health workers for rising to the crisis.

“I thank all Liberians for the effort. When Ebola came, we were confused. We called on our professionals. They put their best in the fight, this is the result I have sent a message to the international community to thank them,” she said.

In the coming years there will be a reckoning on the response to the greatest ever Ebola outbreak, which left 11 000 dead.

The West was initially accused of ignoring the crisis and then treating Liberia and its neighbours as pariahs, blocking flights and quarantining returning health workers after the first-ever domestic infections outside of Africa, in the US and Spain.

The WHO, at times seen as overly bureaucratic and politicised, was berated for waiting until August – almost five months after the outbreak was identified – to declare it a “public health emergency of international concern.”

“Quite simply, we were all too late. The world – including MSF – was slow to start the response from the beginning,” said MSF’s head of Ebola operations in Brussels, Henry Gray, in a statement.

Namibia: Government to name and shame irresponsible fathers

(Pic: Flickr / Matt)
(Pic: Flickr / Matt)

Namibian fathers who fail to pay maintenance for their children could soon have their photos published in the media.

The Namibian reports that the country’s justice minister Albert Kawana announced the decision as a “desperate and last resort” to shame “dodgy” fathers into meeting their parental responsibilities.

There are plans to begin publishing the photos in the next three months, but the rules for implementation are still to be finalised and maintenance officers will have to obtain a court order before photos of the men can be published.

“Everyone should know who that person is. It is also undermining the efforts by the government to alleviate poverty and it puts the responsibility on the state when fathers don’t play their role,” Kawana told The Namibian.

Read more here.

Liberia emerges from the nightmare of Ebola

Staff and volunteers at the ELWA hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia wearing protective gear. (Pic: AFP)
Staff and volunteers at the ELWA hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia wearing protective gear. (Pic: AFP)

Heavily pregnant when she died, Fatimah Jakemah was bagged, bleached and carted off for cremation, one of dozens of new cases in the capital that week as Ebola tightened its grip on Liberia.

It was early September and the outbreak was about to mushroom into an emergency of historic proportions that would eventually see 4 700 deaths throughout the country.

Across town, Olivia Clark found herself handing another collection team her 18-month-old son, Aaron, who had slipped away a few hours earlier, too young to fight the deadly virus amplifying inside his tiny body.

Her husband was already dead and Red Cross trucks piled with bodies were becoming a familiar sight as Ebola stalked the capital’s poorest neighbourhoods, terrorising families crammed into squalid slum housing.

Amid the horror, one case stood out as uniquely cruel.

In the quarantined hamlet of Ballajah, 150 kilometres away, 12-year-old Fatu Sherrif was locked into her home with her dead mother as panicked neighbours fled to the forest.

Her cries could be heard for several days by the few who had stayed in the abandoned village before she died alone, without food or water.

By October the situation was so bad that besieged Red Cross disposal teams had given up trying to separate Ebola victims from those who might have met other ends, following a government directive to “burn them all”.

As Ebola set out on its murderous path through Liberia and its neighbours Guinea and Sierra Leone, credible medical experts were predicting worst case scenarios of more than a million cases and tens of thousands dead.

‘Ebola-free’

Yet treatment units are now lying empty and life is returning to normal as Liberians emerge from the nightmare which enveloped them in the summer and autumn of 2014.

If there are no new infections in the next 48 hours, the World Health Organisation (WHO) will declare Liberia “Ebola-free” on Saturday, 42 days – or twice the incubation period of the virus – after the last case.

At the height of the crisis in late September it was seeing more than 400 new cases a week, with uncollected and highly infectious bodies piling up in the streets of Monrovia, a sprawling, chaotic city at the best of times.

The health system – embryonic before the crisis, with some 50 doctors and 1 000 nurses for 4.3 million people – was devastated, losing 189 health workers out of 275 infected.

Schools remained shut after the summer holidays, unemployment soared as the formal and black-market economies collapsed and clinics closed as staff died and non-emergency healthcare ground to a halt.

And then, as suddenly as it had crept in, Ebola retreated.

Liberia, which had recorded 389 deaths one week in October, found the tally dropping below 100 within weeks and into single figures by the start of 2015.

The last person to die was Ruth Tugbah, a 44-year old fruit seller who contracted the virus in mid-March, probably through having sex with her boyfriend, an Ebola survivor.

In the coming years there will be a reckoning on the response to the greatest ever Ebola outbreak, which has left 11,000 dead and is still simmering in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The West was accused of ignoring the crisis early on and then treating Liberia and its neighbours as pariahs, blocking flights and quarantining returning health workers after the first-ever domestic infections outside of Africa, in the US and Spain.

The WHO, at times seen as overly bureaucratic and politicised, was berated for waiting until August – almost five months after the outbreak was identified – to declare it a “public health emergency of international concern”.

‘Morale transformed’

With the outbreak nearing its peak and facing criticism over US inertia, President Barack Obama ordered the largest ever US deployment to the region in September, sending 2,800 troops to build 11 Ebola treatment units across Liberia.

Critics pointed out that cases had already begun to fall before they were set up and most remained empty.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has pointed out, however, that the military activity was just a small proportion of the full American response which included – among numerous projects – funding 10 000 civilian responders and 70 safe burial teams.

An official told AFP that clinics it funded had treated 943 patients, 190 of whom had Ebola.

In any case, David Nabarro, the UN’s special envoy on Ebola, argues that the appearance of the Americans and their military clinics gave people hope.

“I watched in September and October as the arrival of the Americans in Liberia completely transformed the morale of people and the government and, I believe, contributed to a much more widespread change in behaviour than any of us imagined would be possible,” he told reporters this week in Dakar.

“Virtually the whole country in the space of a couple of weeks in the beginning of October adopted different ways of living and reduced their risk of infection.”

When – if – the WHO declares Liberia “Ebola-free” on Saturday there will be no bunting, no ticker tape parades, just the repeated reminder on the airwaves to guard against complacency.

Liberia will remain alert to two threats – the possibility that someone with Ebola might get into the country under the radar, and that “small flare-ups” seen in other outbreaks are a possibility over the coming months.

“My colleagues in Liberia told me that they expect to be keeping extensive surveillance and practising precautions for probably as long as one year,” Nabarro said.

Lifaqane music festival: Harmony out of chaos

Hip Hop Pantsula. (Pic: Supplied)
South African rap icon Hip Hop Pantsula. (Pic: Supplied)

The logo wrapped around the stage pillars at the Lifaqane-Mfecane Music Festival – the inaugural traditional music event in Maseru, Lesotho, hosted against a mountainous backdrop at the Thaba Basiou Cultural Village on May 2 – read “1815 was chaos, 2015 is collective.”

The logo compares a “collective” 2015 to the “chaos” of 1815, the year that marked the start of almost three decades of turmoil and wars between Southern African ethnic groups. This period in history is known as the Mfecane in isiZulu, Lifeqane in Sesotho or the “Wars of Calamity” by the English, which effectively led to the creation of the Lesotho kingdom.

And yes, following last year’s political upheaval in the country, which saw an alleged botched coup and the subsequent suspension of Parliament, a sense of ­political calmness prevailed at the February general elections, according to the Southern African Development Community Electoral Observation Mission. The elections were called following the unrest and resulted in the current coalition government.

But implying that 2015, by way of the music festival, is a “collective” would be fairly presumptuous of Ancestral Collective, the nonprofit organisation that presented the spectacle. With a late start to the music event and some no shows, a sense of chaos pervaded the poorly attended event.

Hit and miss
Due to the late start, South African musician Thandiswa Mazwai’s pre-headliner performance was cut to 30 minutes. But in that limited time, the award-winning singer gave a rousing show and sang extended renditions of hits such as “Ingoma” to an enamoured audience wrapped in blankets and thick coats to ward off the autumn night’s chill.

As the dwindling crowd patiently waited for the final act, South African rap icon Hip Hop Pantsula, an unfamiliar face – not the festival emcee – took to the stage to snappishly announce the closure of the concert in Sesotho. With a few boos and cries of disappointment from the crowd, the first Lifaqane-Mfecane Music Festival unexpectedly shut down just after midnight.

“Police closed it down after midnight,” read the WhatsApp response from the organisers to my questions on reasons the show was cut short. If this message was broadcasted clearly to those who paid from R150 for a ticket, there would have been less anger and confusion at the event.

But with firsts, obstacles are likely to surface; making it easy to forgive the glitches that arose at Saturday’s showcase. The atmosphere at the cultural village was upbeat and performances from the musicians who did play were captivating.

Highlighting traditional music from Lesotho and South Africa, artists like maskandi heroes Phuzekhemisi and Ntombe Thongo and Lesotho-born vocalist Tsepo Tshola had audiences on a high. While local saxophonist and singer Bhudaza led his band and the crowd on a soulful jazz and gospel journey through the evening.

Heritage remembered
Lifaqane-Mfecane Music Festival is funded by Ancestral Collective. It is a new organisation “developed and structured to create platforms to create and send a strong message to our people, in particular Africans, to remember and know their history, know who they really are, be proud of and celebrate their cultures, customs and traditions”, writes the organisation’s Lekhooe Isaac Khothatso Moletsane who, according to him, is “direct descendant of the great Makgothi Moletsane”.

Makgothi Moletsane was a revered ally of the 19th century BaSotho king, Moshoeshoe I, who is buried in the area where the festival took place, Thaba Basiou, which was also his headquarters during part of his reign.

“The main focus of the show is Sesotho traditional music, with 74% of the artists being Basotho,” reads the Ancestral Collective website’s write-up on the event, as it names musicians such as Mantsa, Puseletso Seema and Rabotso le Semanyane. Using local and international music acts, the festival’s aim seems clear: to “pay tribute to a forgotten but very important time in our history, to pay homage to those who fought and died trying to protect our people and our land, and to get people to think about, research, and learn about this time in our history. Once we truly know who we are and where we come from, then we will know where we are going”.

Africa is one
And at a time where widespread ethnic violence or xenophobia recently erupted in the country surrounding Lesotho, it is this last sentence by the organisation that South Africans could take away and utilise it as a way of respecting foreign nationals as fellow Africans and nothing less.

In an interview with Hip Hop Pantsula ahead of his performance at the festival, he spoke at length about this topic to the Mail & Guardian.

“Part of the reasons why these attacks are happening is that we don’t know any better. We don’t know the true history of the origins of many of our ethnic groups here at home; and half of our families are made up of foreigners who adopted local surnames to acculturate.”

And with the festival’s intention to raise awareness around historical events of Lesotho and South Africa, it is a platform for greatness. With a rigorous marketing strategy in future and smooth-running programme on the day, the show might live beyond its pilot status.

Stefanie Jason is a senior content producer for the Mail & Guardian Friday.

‘No room’ for gays in Kenya, says deputy president

(Pic: Reuters)
(Pic: Reuters)

Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, has told worshippers at a church service in Nairobi that homosexuality had no place in the east African nation, reports said on Monday.

Homophobia is on the rise across much of Africa and homosexuality remains illegal in many countries, including Kenya where it was outlawed under British colonial legislation.

“We will not allow homosexuality in our society as it violates our religious and cultural beliefs,” Ruto was quoted as telling a cheering congregation at the Jesus Winner Ministry Church on the outskirts of the capital.

“We will stand with religious leaders to defend our faith and our beliefs,” he said. “There’s no room for homosexuality in this country. That one I can assure you.”

Ruto’s comments came as US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Kenya. Asked to react to the reported comments, Kerry reiterated Washington’s position.

“The US believes that all people are created equal and all people have rights, that includes people of every faith, every gender, every choice of partner, no matter who you love,” he told reporters.

Ruto, who is on trial at the International Criminal in The Hague accused of crimes against humanity, said his stance was about morality not politics.

“When we say this, we are not saying so as to get votes but to protect what we all believe is right,” he said, according to The Star newspaper.

In conservative Christian and Muslim countries in Africa, homophobia is a vote-winner.

In Uganda legislators sought the death penalty for homosexuality and although the anti-gay bill has since been watered down, ruling party MPs remain eager to see it passed.

Nigeria and Gambia have passed tough new anti-gay laws in recent years, with Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, calling homosexuals “ungodly, Satanic… vermins [sic]” in a speech last year.

Homosexuality is illegal in 36 out of 54 African countries and punishable by death in four, according to human rights group Amnesty International.

In Kenya, too, a cross-party parliamentary group is seeking stricter application of existing anti-gay legislation.

Binyavanga Wainaina, a prominent Kenyan writer who last year came out as gay, took to social media to attack Ruto’s comments.

“Our Deputy President Ruto is building himself to be the most dangerous man in Africa. If his strategy works much will burn,” Wainaina told his 18 000 followers on Twitter.

The Jesus Winner Ministry Church specialises in prophecies and describes itself on its website as “an oasis” for people “under the yoke of curses, witchcraft, stagnation, ancestral spirits and other evils brought by Satan.”

It is popular with Kenya’s political elite.