The pitiful Ebola test I had won’t stop epidemic
Ebola, that most terrifying of plagues, is back. The indescribable agony of victims, who spew blood from every orifice before dying of multiple organ failure, is once again stalking Africa.
Medical experts are calling on the World Health Organisation to declare a public health emergency, which will bring aid and international support.
A total of 1,400 people have succumbed in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now two victims – a five-year-old boy and his 50-year-old grandmother – have died in neighbouring Uganda, the country’s first recorded cases. Whether they had health checks at the border is not known.
Having been recently screened for Ebola at the Ugandan border myself, I can attest that the pre-emptive measures in place are pitiful.
I was crossing from Rwanda to go trekking in the mountains.
At the dusty border crossing, we were instructed to queue by the side of the road.
We were brought forward, one by one, by an armed guard and told to disinfect our feet. This involved standing, fully shod, in a single filthy washing up bowl of “detergent”.
Fortunately I was wearing
walking boots; one of my fellow travellers had changed into open-toed sandals.
Then we queued again, this time to have our temperature taken. Thank God the community nurses – at least I assume that’s who the smiling women in T-shirts and flip flops were – had ear thermometers.
I passed through. One of my Jeep-mates did not. I think the whole situation had literally made her hot and bothered.
As we waited for her to be retested, we wondered aloud what would happen if someone who did have Ebola turned up.
One of the nurses shrugged and looked over at the guard. Thankfully, our fellow trekker proved her temperature was normal and we all headed off to passport control.
How effective was that screening? Was everyone tested? Who knows?
The whole thing left me feeling immensely grateful for living in a first-world country, but also chastened.
If this is Uganda’s best hope of preventing a deadly epidemic, then the sooner the WHO confers public health emergency status, the better.