A most welcomed precaution

Nov 06, 2014 Editorial

The decision by the local authorities to close the borders of the country to people from West Africa where Ebola is raging, is one of the most welcome, given Guyana’s medical capability. When the disease broke there was an element of complacency in this country. This was not the first time that Ebola had visited the world with its deadly impact.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name.
The health authorities had by then determined that the disease is acquired from wild animals. Once in the human chain it is transmitted by human contact. The mortality rate is somewhere between fifty per cent and ninety per cent.
The current outbreak in West Africa, (first cases notified in March 2014), is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976. For one, it is wreaking havoc in three countries and threatening to spread to other African countries. Cases have been recorded in the United States but every victim has been someone who was providing health care for Ebola cases in West Africa.
The pictures out of the Ebola stricken Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone grimly highlight the fate of the victims. Like Guyana, these are poor countries (Nigeria is much better off than Guyana given its oil resources) so the people at home are not too discomfited by people crawling in the streets.
Heaven forbid, but should the disease cross our borders the pictures from West Africa would pale into insignificance. For one, Guyana does not have the volume of medical institutions to house the cases, so like Sierra Leone people will be dying on the streets.
Initially, given Guyana’s predisposition to ignore the people and to do things that the administration thinks is in the best interest of the people, there was some fear that the Minister of Health was behaving like the proverbial ostrich ducking its head in the sand in the face of the Ebola threat.
However, the country’s protection has been removed from his hands by none other than the Head of State who has since broadened the health care base to include members of civil society, non-governmental organisations, the private sector and just about every group in society.
Just last week the authorities in keeping with the decision to keep out anyone who comes from West Africa, refused entry to some students from Nigeria. These students have been studying medicine in Guyana and had gone home for the holidays. This action by the students is itself revealing.
One would have thought that people far removed from the Ebola virus would have wanted to remain far from it. However, a psychological bond between parent and child, and people and their relatives would make some people do the unthinkable. Indeed, the Ebola virus was not as widespread in Nigeria as it is in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Never the less, the virus is in that country and given the movement of people it could be easily disseminated. Guyana with its almost nonexistent resources to fight the virus has opted to take the most effective way out. Ban all visitors.
But having done that, the country must now think about beefing up its health care services. Are we training anyone to deal with the virus? Have we been having programmes to deal with containment?
But there is a lesson to be learnt here. No country is an island so there is always the possibility of something starting in one country and affecting many others. The reports on Ebola might have been much worse had there not been so many conflicts around the globe. Each day one hears chilling reports of the group calling itself Islamic States beheading their detainees. The other day they massacred some 200 policemen.
Surely these would make Ebola pale into insignificance. But Guyana should not be distracted because to do so could be disastrous.

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A most welcomed precaution

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