By Ezekiel Nabieu
Factors attendant upon the spread of Ebola will remain manifold until the disease is snuffed out. It would appear that the increase in the incidence of the disease is mainly due either to the incomprehension of the people or some degree of deafness or both. In this regard it may be necessary to employ the services of ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctors.
The Quarantine Quagmire
If only it had been stymied at its point of entry within the chiefdom concerned it wouldn’t have become a national buzzword. But for our penchant for prevaricating in metaphors and reasoning in bombast we should have settled for the words ISOLATION or DETENTION in common usage which means virtually the same thing. After all ours is a mainly illiterate populace thanks to heedless governments over the years. Don’t blame the untaught for viewing quarantine as a kind of hospital from where one can breeze in and out when able.
It is however damning and abhorrent to think that months into the Ebola plague there are still plaintive cries from within the quarantines for lack of food. And these notes of deprivation come at a time when donations in money and kind are being made towards Ebola almost on a daily basis. Under these circumstances is it not logical to conclude that some of these monies are not being used for the purposes intended? One’s wonder is heightened by the fact that all the starved quarantines are in constituencies and wards where M.Ps and Councilors have received Le62m and Le2millions each respectively. They have all done their best by purchasing Veronica Buckets and a few bags of rice providing “leadership.” As recent as last week deaths by starvation were reported in Port Loko.
Fie upon the MP of that constituency and the Councilor concerned! In Freetown quarantined house No 38 Pademba Road was reported without food Friday 21st November, 2014. Why would anyone blame anyone at quarantine for going in search of food if he/she is not in a death camp? Security say they are stretched to an elastic limit. How is this Ebola going to end soon?
ABC & APC
It is unsympathetic to treat very serious matters of survival with levity. Whether that is done unwittingly or not I cannot fathom. Just to get an acronym we are parading ABC (Avoid Body Contact) with little regard to what it means to the preponderantly illiterate populace. The only word in that term that can be understood by man in the street is “Body”. AVOID & CONTACT mean little or nothing to them. A more intelligible term would have been “Nor touch porsin.”
This can be the understood and abided with by almost all the people. Another light-hearted slogan is APC (Avoid People’s Compound). If everybody avoids another’s compound are we going to be living as solitary and self-contained as oysters? Certainly not. Why not have a more meaningful slogan namely AVOID MARKETS where crowds cluster and grease on one another while perspiring profusely? This makes nonsense of AVOID PEOPLE’S COMPOUND. Let’s be serious about eradicating Ebola for once.
QUESTION TIME
These questions are for clarification by those concerned and for reflection by those unconcerned.
Relax and have a good read!
- Shall we replace the fashionable AVOID BODY TOUCH by our bookish people by NOR TOUCH POSIN for a better understanding of the message by the grassroots?
- Are all the survivors from the Hastings Treatment Centre ex-Ebola patients?
- (a) Will taking care of ordinary measures not lead to extraordinary measures taking care of themselves?
3.(b) Is that not what Nigeria and Senegal did?
- Could you believe that there are plans to form an Association of Ebola Disbelievers (AED)?
© Politico 02/12/14
