Tag: Ebola

Nigeria’s tech-savvy response to Ebola pays off

(Pic: Reuters)

When an Internet message announcing a salt water solution for Ebola went viral in July, many Nigerians were quick to take heed. Twenty people were hospitalised and two died, reportedly from an excessive intake of salt.

Madam Franca was among those ready to believe in the power of salt water. “My niece, who happens to be a nurse, sent me an SMS that early morning, and I obeyed it,” Franca explained. “I had to do anything to stop Ebola from coming close to me. I bathed with salt water, morning and night for two good days, but I did not drink. I am hypertensive. I also sent all my family and close friends the SMS.”

Nigerians watched with growing unease as the Ebola outbreak spread through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Few believed the creaking health infrastructure or the government’s managerial skills would be able to survive such a test. So when Ebola-positive Liberian Patrick Sawyer stepped off a plane in Lagos airport on 20 July, collapsed and died, social media exploded.

But it was not just the salt water claims and bogus pastors promising salvation that made the running: government agencies and proactive individuals also took to the internet to quickly debunk the rumours and offer proper advice. The authorities also threatened to arrest anyone spreading falsehoods, starting with the salt water “cure”. There was, after all, a plan in place.

A mass audience for messages
At 67 million users, Nigeria reportedly has the eighth largest Internet population in the world. It also had close to 166 million mobile subscribers as ofJune. (The country’s population is 175 million.)

With so many Nigerians online, portals like ebolalert.org set up by volunteer doctors, and the public/private ebolafacts.com initiative, have become important channels to provide accurate information to help people stay safe. They complement telephone hotlines and more traditional public health approaches.

The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) has also taken a role in the communications work on Ebola, using the SMS portal UReport. UReport Nigeria is a free SMS platform designed as a community-based two-way information exchange mechanism. According to Unicef communications specialist Geoffrey Njoku, over 57 000 people received more than 3.6 million SMSes containing key messages about Ebola and how to stay protected over a six-week period.

Comfort and confidence
For some who have used the service, like Dr Adoara Igonoh, an Ebola survivor, the advice given offered reassurance and quelled fears. “I began to think about my mother,” Igonoh recalled. “She was under surveillance along with my other family members. I was worried. She had touched my sweat. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. Hours later on Twitter I came across a tweet from the WHO [World Health Organisation] saying that the sweat of an Ebola patient cannot transmit it at the late stage [after the incubation period]. That settled it for me. It calmed the storms that were raging within me concerning my parents.”

Nigeria has won praise from the international community for its response to the outbreak. While Ebola continues to burn in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, in Nigeria it appears to have been contained with only 21 confirmed cases and eight deaths – with the last case reported on 8 September and tracing having proven effective.

“A key issue in the fight against Ebola after the provision of the necessary human and technical infrastructure is information management,” said Tochuwu Akunyii, an online writer on public policy and international development. “In information management, the dissemination of accurate information is crucial; social media can be vital in this process.” Akunyii pays particular tribute to Nigerian youth and its use of forums and platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Social media complemented traditional media
Nigerians who do not have access to the Internet and mobile phones have not been left out of the Ebola campaign. Traditional mediums like radio, flyers, posters, village meetings and announcements by town criers are all being used. Priority is given to local languages.

Comparing the traditional methods of campaigning to social media and SMS campaigns, Nwokedi Moses, better known as Big MO, a vernacular language broadcaster with Wazobia FM, said the two approaches worked well together. “The social media Ebola campaign was massive, but it complemented the traditional media. This is due to social media’s limited reach within rural areas.”

Local authorities have also taken the initiative. The Lagos State and Rivers State governments – the only two states where Ebola emerged – incorporated traditional awareness-raising campaigns like road shows, radio and TV jingles, distributing flyers, and educating the public on basic hygiene. Since Ebola first emerged, there has been a roaring trade in hand sanitizers and a corresponding collapse in the “bush meat” market.

As Nigeria gradually returns to normal, signalled by the slightly hesitant reopening of schools on 22 September, health campaigners are moving to tackle the new challenge of ending the stigmatisation of those who have recovered from Ebola – backed by a government warning threatening action against those that discriminate.

Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola recently met survivors to confirm that an Ebola-free certificate means what it says. Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu has declared survivors the “safest people to be around”, given their new immunity to the virus.

10 years ago

Travelling with the extra baggage of Ebola stigma

A woman passes a sign posted in an awareness campaign against the spread of Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Pic: Reuters)

Upon landing at Kigali International Airport last month, I peered out the window and my eyes caught sight of an official clad in protective gear standing just under a sign that read ‘Arrivals: Ebola testing’. If I had ever been removed from what has been going on in my beloved Sierra Leone, it ended in this moment. Before my flight from Washington, I was informed that we would be screened upon arrival. And there it was. Even from the window of seat 16K, I could see the measures that had been put in place to protect the citizens of the country.

After disembarking the plane and entering the airport, we stood in a queue for about 10 minutes. I noticed a form that other passengers were filling out. I asked the young lady behind me if it was for everyone. She responded “Yes,” so I moved to the counter to complete mine. It asked: “In the past three weeks have you been in the following countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal?” At that moment I felt a sense of solidarity first with Sierra Leoneans near and far, because sadly this too has become one of our realities. I also felt isolation because my entry, identity and existence were being sanctioned and questioned by a customs form. A customs form at which other travellers would not cringe; they don’t have blood from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Even if I don’t explain to you what happened next, you would still be able to surmise what would occur naturally as a Sierra Leonean-American woman with Sierra Leonean entry and departure stamps in her US passport. As I continued filling out the form, I checked “No” on the form because the truth was I hadn’t been to Sierra Leone in the past three weeks.

I calculated: three weeks equals 21 days. Twenty one is the magic number that many African countries and people all over the world will use to promote the stigmatisation of people from Ebola-hit countries, or with any relations to them. It’s the number that would decide your fate when attempting to enter another country. It takes up to 21 days for the deadly Ebola virus to manifest itself in symptoms after one has been exposed. The incubation period, they call it.

No, I haven’t been in Sierra Leone in the past 21 days. Not physically. But in the past 21 days, my thoughts have been there. My mind has raced incessantly and my heart has jumped at the numbers. My soul has cringed at flaws that have been illustrated by this epidemic in Sierra Leone. For more than 21 days, I have certainly felt helpless.

But this customs officer didn’t exactly know how I or other Sierra Leoneans have felt for the past few months. As he attempted to look for a clear page to add the Rwanda entry stamp, he came across my Sierra Leonean visa page. He glanced at my passport and the stamps for my entries to Sierra Leone, the most recent being December 2013 to January 2014. I watched his eyes widen slightly as he turned the pages and I anticipated the questioning. It took a while for him to gather his thoughts and ask the question. “Are you coming from the United States?” Obviously, I thought to myself. “When last have you traveled to Sierra Leone?” Didn’t you already see the stamps? “What was the last date you left Sierra Leone?” I responded “January 10, 2014. And when I left, this wasn’t a problem”.

Some countries have banned the entry of citizens and passengers arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – nations that have been hit the hardest by the latest Ebola outbreak. I understand caution but paranoia and, consequently, stigmatisation, are not the cures to this disease. To see a Sierra Leonean visa in my passport evidently put the official on high alert. The realisation that I could somehow be considered a ‘risk’ – not just to this man but to his country – despite the evidence before him made me feel small.

He stared at me a bit longer, as if trying to gauge whether the words I uttered were the truth. Then he asked me for my point of contact. I gave him that information. He made the decision not to call or do whatever he had considering doing. I smiled because even in the face of this ugly stigma and the horror that we know as Ebola in Sierra Leone, I am still proudly a “Salone Titi.” I thanked him, retrieved my passport, and rolled my hand luggage to begin my experience as a Sierra Leonean-American woman in Rwanda.

Bintu Musa is a globetrotting educator and writer. She is currently lecturing at Rwanda Tourism University College as a Fulbright Scholar. She blogs at Bee’s Backseat.

10 years ago

Sierra Leone quarantines more than 1-million people

A woman passes a sign posted in an awareness campaign against the spread of Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Pic: Reuters)

Sierra Leone has ordered the quarantine “with immediate effect” of three districts and 12 tribal chiefdoms – affecting more than one million people – in the largest lockdown in west Africa’s deadly Ebola outbreak.

President Ernest Bai Koroma, in a national televised address late on Wednesday, announced that the northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali were to be closed off along with the southern district of Moyamba – effectively sealing off around 1.2-million people.

With the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun already under quarantine, more than a third of the population of six million, in five of the nation’s 14 districts, now finds itself unable to move freely.

“The isolation of districts and chiefdoms will definitely pose great difficulty but the lives of everyone and the survival of our country takes precedence over these difficulties,” Koroma said.

“These are trying moments for everyone in the country.”

The deadliest Ebola epidemic on record has infected almost 6 000 people in west Africa and killed nearly half of them, according to the World Health Organisation’s latest figures.

The virus can fell its victims within days, causing rampant fever, severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and — in many cases — unstoppable internal and external bleeding.

In Sierra Leone, Ebola has infected 1 813 people, killing 593, by the WHO count.

Koroma said that 12 of the county’s 149 tribal chiefdoms – much smaller administrative areas than districts – were also to be placed in quarantine. The total population in these areas was not immediately clear.

The president said corridors for travel to and from non-quarantined areas had been established but would only operate between 9:00 am and 5pm.

“The Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the emergency operation centre will establish additional holding centres in the quarantined chiefdoms,” Koroma said.

Death toll
Sierra Leone announced on Wednesday that around 100 bodies and 200 patients had been collected from homes during a nationwide three-day lockdown and house-to-house information campaign which ended on Sunday.

“To sustain our efforts in overcoming the challenges that were further revealed during the house-to-house campaign and in consultation with our partners – and in line with our people’s avowed commitment to support extra measures to end the Ebola outbreak – the government decided to institute these further measures,” Koroma added.

The WHO said earlier this week 5 864 people had been infected since the virus first emerged in southern Guinea in December, and that 2 811 had died.

In Liberia, which has been hit hardest by the outbreak, 3 022 people have been infected and 1 578 have died while in Guinea, Ebola has infected 1 008 people, killing 632.

Nigeria has recorded 20 cases, including eight deaths, since the virus first arrived in the country with a Liberian finance ministry official, who died in Lagos on July 25.

Guinea’s President Alpha Conde and cabinet ministers from Liberia and Sierra Leone were due to attend a meeting in New York on Ebola convened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later Thursday.

The meeting – part of the United Nations General Assembly – will hear from US President Barack Obama and world leaders are expected to pledge help for efforts to try to contain the spread of the virus.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan appeared to jump the gun on medical advice at home on Wednesday to tell an applauding UN that Nigeria was free of Ebola.

“We can confidently say that today Nigeria is Ebola free,” Jonathan told the largest diplomatic gathering in the world to a ripple of applause in New York.

“Nigeria is Ebola free,” he said a second time to further applause.

Doctors said earlier they would have to wait to declare the outbreak over despite the Nigerian federal health ministry saying all patients being monitored for the virus had been cleared.

Rod Mac Johnson for AFP

10 years ago

Ebola threatening Liberia’s existence, minister warns

Health workers at ELWA’s hospital isolation camp in Liberia. (Pic: Reuters)

Ebola is threatening the very existence of Liberia as the killer virus spreads like “wild fire”, the defence minister warned Tuesday, following a grim World Health Organisation assessment that the worst is yet to come.

After predicting an “exponential increase” in infections across West Africa, the WHO warned that Liberia, which has accounted for half of all fatalities, could initially only hope to slow the contagion, not stop it.

“Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence,” Defence Minister Brownie Samukai told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

The disease is “now spreading like wild fire, devouring everything in its path,” he said.

The WHO upped the Ebola death toll on Tuesday to 2 296 out of 4 293 cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria as of September 6. Nearly half of all infections had occurred in the past 21 days, it said.

The agency also evacuated its second infected medical expert, a doctor who had been working at an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone.

Emory University Hospital in the United States admitted an American on Tuesday who had contracted the disease in west Africa, but declined to confirm whether the patient was the WHO employee.

The hospital has successfully treated two other infected US nationals.

Ebola, transmitted through bodily fluids, leads to haemorrhagic fever and – in over half of cases – death. There is no specific treatment regime and no licensed vaccine.

The latest WHO figures underscore Ebola’s asymmetric spread, as it rips through densely populated communities with decrepit health facilities and poor public awareness campaigns.

Speaking on Tuesday, WHO’s epidemiology chief Sylvie Briand said the goal in Senegal and Nigeria was now “to stop transmission completely”. Senegal has announced only one infection, while Nigeria has recorded 19 infections and eight deaths.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is battling a separate outbreak which has killed 32 in a remote northwestern region.

“But in other locations, like Monrovia, where we have really wide community transmission, we are aiming at two-step strategies,” Briand said in Geneva, “first, to reduce the transmission as much as possible and, when it becomes controllable, we will also try to stop it completely.

“But at this point in time we need to be pragmatic and try to reduce it in the initial steps.”

A day earlier the WHO had warned that aid organisations trying to help Liberia to respond would “need to prepare to scale up their current efforts by three- to four-fold”.

Before the current outbreak, it noted, Liberia only had one doctor for every 100 000 patients in a population of 4.4 million.

In Montserrado county, which contains Monrovia, there are no spare beds at the few Ebola treatment sites operating, the WHO said.

It described how infected people were being driven to centres only to be turned away, return home and create “flare-ups” of deadly fever in their villages.

It said 1 000 beds are needed – far more than the 240 currently operational and 260 planned.

Guinea’s President Alpha Conde described Ebola as a “war” his nation – with 555 dead so far – needed to win.

He slammed neighbouring states including Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal for shutting their borders, and airlines for suspending flights to affected countries.

“They forget that when you close borders, people just go through the bush. It’s better to have official passages of transit,” he said.

African Union commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also called Monday for travel bans to be lifted “to open up economic activities”.

In Gambia, customs officials said Tuesday they had closed the borders to Guineans, Liberians, Nigerians and Sierra Leoneans – though not to neighbouring Senegal.

“We are also advising Gambians intending to travel to these countries to cancel their trips, but any Gambian who fails to heed our advice, we will not allow you in the country if you return,” Ebrima Kurumah, a health officer posted at the border with Senegal, told AFP.

There were restrictions further afield, too. China, one of the region’s main investors, announced on Tuesday it was reinforcing checks on people, goods and vehicles – and even mail – arriving from affected countries.

Meanwhile, Italy announced its first possible case of Ebola – a woman recently returned from Nigeria.

10 years ago

Ebola taking toll on West African economy

Locals in a market in Kenema, Sierra Leone. (Pic: AFP)

The worst-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus is taking a heavy toll on West Africa’s economy as crops rot in the fields, mines are abandoned and goods cannot get to market.

The epidemic has ravaged the region since it erupted in the forests in the south of Guinea earlier this year, killing 1 427 people and infecting thousands more.

On Friday health officials said the fever had spread to every corner of Liberia, the worst-hit country in the grip of the epidemic where 624 people have died so far.

But beyond the mounting death toll, the disease is also undermining the region’s economic growth and threatening the long-term development of some of the world’s poorest countries.

“It is a total catastrophe. We are losing lots of money,” said Alhaji Bamogo, who sells clothes in the market in the Liberian capital Monrovia.

“All those who are coming to the market come only to buy food or products for the disinfection of Ebola,” he said.

Economic crisis
Across the resource-rich countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, companies are suspending operations due to fears of the haemorrhagic fever, which is spread through contact with bodily fluids.

Steel giant ArcelorMittal this month said the contractors at its expanding iron ore works in Liberia had suspended operations and were pulling out staff.

Several international airlines have halted their flights to west Africa in a move that Moody’s ratings agency warns “will exact an economic toll” on the region.

And in Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer and most populous country where 15 cases have been identified and five people have died, experts warn that the impact for the regional economy could be dire if the disease takes hold.

“The Ebola epidemic is not just a public health crisis, but an economic crisis… affecting many sectors of activity,” the president of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka warned this month.

Too dangerous to invest
Philippe Hugon, Africa research director at the French think-tank IRIS, said the biggest threat for west Africa is a long-term pullout of global companies that the region relies on.

“Everything depends on whether this stays limited or whether the epidemic continues to spread in a prolonged way. The heads of foreign businesses on the ground are very concerned,” he said.

The epidemic may “reinforce the idea that Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are countries where it is dangerous to live — because of diseases like Ebola and AIDS — and thus to invest in,” he said.

The disease is also exacting a direct economic toll on the countries where it is spreading by sapping already stretched government budgets.

Moody’s warned it will squeeze state coffers from all sides, by forcing both “increased health expenditures, and… an Ebola-induced economic slowdown on government revenue generation”.

This month the African Development Bank pledged $60 million to support the over-stretched health systems of the four affected countries.

Critics have accused west Africa’s governments of being slow to admit the extent of the problem because of the cost of deploying resources to fight the disease.

Amadou Soumah, a trade union official in Guinea, which only last week declared a national emergency despite being at the epicentre of the outbreak earlier this year, said the government had played down the crisis “to stop investors fleeing”.

And now “Guinea is going to deploy its forces along the border to rack up even more spending,” he added, referring to the closure of its frontiers with Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Food shortages
For people on the ground, the epidemic has created an even more pressing problem: food shortages.

In the markets, supplies of staple commodities such as rice are already dwindling, with only the bravest traders willing to venture far afield to buy stocks.

In quarantined zones in Sierra Leone and Liberia, key cash crops such as cocoa and coffee have been left rotting in the fields as farmers fear to stray far from home.

“People are going to move around less and less,” said Philippe De Vreyer, a specialist in west African economics and professor at the University of Paris.

“For instance, the man who usually goes to the local market to sell his vegetables will decide to stay home. People are not going to get their supplies, with all that entails.”

In Nigeria, even though it is the least hit by the epidemic, Ebola fears are already keeping people indoors.

So far the epidemic has not threatened the economically vital oil industry, which is centred in the southern Niger Delta about 1 000 kilometres from Lagos, where the cases have been found.

The service industry is feeling the effects, however.

“Bookings to hotels have dropped by almost 30 percent so far this month, as have orders for food and drink for large social gatherings like weddings and funerals,” said Bismarck Rewane, head of the Lagos-based Financial Derivatives Company.

Zoom Dosso for AFP