The human tragedy of Ebola
FROM the three West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the Ebola epidemic appears to have jumped across the border north to Mali. There, an imam and the nurse looking after him were reported to have died and everyone in the clinic where he had been treated are now all under close quarantine. These are 30 people, half of them medical staff and patients. The other half are 15 United Nations Peacekeepers assigned to a mission in Mali.
We are fortunate that the Filipino UN Peacekeepers who returned recently from Liberia were not in any direct contact with any Ebola patient during their stay in that country. Otherwise, we would all be doubly worried about the health of the 108 men who arrived the other day and are now on Caballo island at the mouth of Manila Bay.
Ebola is such a dangerous disease that spreads through direct contact with a patient, through body fluids such as sweat and blood. Thus the need for doctors and nurses to be totally covered from head to toe – protective gear which we still do not have. Hospital personnel in the centers assigned to re- ceive any Filipino Ebola patient have complained that the protective gear they were issued while in training had openings in the neck and face.
The ability of the Ebola virus to easily jump from one person to another by mere touch is said to be one of the main causes of the spread of the disease in West Africa. Traditional African funeral rites, it is said, call for surviving family members to pay due honor to a departed member, apparently including some touching. God forbid that we should ever have an Ebola case in our country, but should there be one, how can a Filipino mother not hold her child one last time?
The precautions taken by our Armed Forces in quarantining our returned UN Peacekeepers for 21 days on Caballo island may seem excessive to some, since they had all been already cleared by UN doctors before leaving Liberia. But we must accept them. The statistics are ominous enough – 5,160 deaths already and 14,000 cases worldwide. But more than the figures is the human element. No less than the people of West Africa, we have our own Filipino culture of love and respect for our loved ones, Ebola victims or not.