#EBOLA & AFRICAS HOPELESSNESS# =The Untold Story= *My Humble Opinion* In as much as would like to empathize and sympathize with Ebola victims and seriously grief over the loss of our distinguished medics all over West Africa, i wish to grimly state here that the Ebola epidemic across the region is rather timely and a welcome development too. Firstly, this epidemic has come to remind our money-bag corrupt political leaders that its not about looting public funds from government coffers, but a little more to it! Come to think of this: Africa is a continent with competent intellectual prowess but its leaders never always mind to devote money to sponsor any scientific researches in their respective countries but prefer to stock up state funds in foreign bank accounts or buy up estates in cities like London, Paris, New York and other such high rise cities across the world, with this ill gotten wealth when universities and colleges in their countries are mere 12meters X 12meters class rooms without any fuctional laboratories and are always blighted by incessant strike actions by unsatisfied school teachers yearning for a better pay and conducive learning conditions for their students. Healthcare and human services departments are simply ineffective beaurucratic structures where facts and figures about HIV/AIDS and childhood killer infections are falsified to milk out and embezzle funds from foreign donors and cannot always coordinate effective control measures against a ravaging epidemic without foreign assistant and hence lack the basic manpower base for such operations. Government Healthcare ministries and agencies have become so nepotistic such that the best brains for the jobs are left out of their employment schemes in favour of their kits and kin or cronies. These experts left without any choice simply migrate to other countries, especially to West, where they would be accommodated and treated fairly, and hence maintaining a steady flow of the brain stream. Ebola has been around us in Africa since the 1970s, but can any African nation boast of attempting any efforts to fund a vaccine/treatment drug research? None! Some people who survived the Ebola virus had developed antibodies against the virus, but no one will bother to attempt harvesting mooclonal antibodies from such individuals to attempt the development of a treatment medication/vaccine with the different strains of the virus, either because of funds or interest. In Africa scientists are seen as crazy disillusioned fellows who spend their life times discussing abstract and untenable ideas and hence are not taken serious. Now when the Americans were hit, they swiftly developed the questionably effective treatment drug Zmapp and adequately treated their people and sent the remnants to us in Africa. When Africans were told by the drug manufacturers that no enough serum for Zmapp manufacture were left, we re ve been very busy crying foul and casting aspersions on anybody we can. None sense cries! How on earth can you continously wait for a neighbour to come over to your home and solve your everyday problems? Ebola has come to inform us Africans that, fixing the problems we face on our continent demands our very own resolve, efforts, and goal-oriented will and wishes. The time to commit huge sums of money in funds to start our reseach for a vaccine/treatment drug is now. No less, no more! As if there are no positives from from our side of the story in Africa, but we can also see some good sides of it too.Our central/East African nations have won many battles against Ebola the in past. In Lagos Nigeria, striking medics selflessly resumed back to work to in order to help tackle Ebola and some even died in process-paying the supreme sacrifice! {..sic..notably late Dr Ameyo Stella Adadevoh(19th century nationalist, Herbert Macauleys granddaughter and many others like her)}.These heroes/heroines of our time are never mentioned our national scheme of things at all( in terms of posthumous awards and support for families left behind),because to the thoughts of the mindless ruling politico-criminal oligarchs, no body sent them! These medics have tried very well in tracking down people who came into contact with the first victim- that mad Liberian Patrick Sawyer(forgive me for my harsh choice of words, though) who brought Ebola to Nigeria. On the other side of town, the Liberians have continued with their madness from denying Ebolas existence to outright ransacking of quarantine centres and the likes, and hence have only increased the scourge of Ebola in that GOD forsaken jungle of Africa. No wonder these Liberians fought a needless civil war for ages without been tired and are always willing to die any day! Now i hear of some countries closing their borders with Ebola endemic countries and all of a sudden there is another epidemic of the disease in northern Congo DRC with a twist- a completely different strain from the one in West Africa.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 11:01:15 +0000
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