By Umaru Fofana
Probably not from the blue, President Ernest Bai Koroma appeared angry last week with the international community and their response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in his country.
First it was a screamer of a headline from the State House Communications Unit: "President Koroma Disappointed with International Community". The news release says among other things that "President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma on Monday 11th August expressed serious disappointment with the slow response of the international community towards the fight against the Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Sierra Leone.
"'I am disappointed at the international community in their delay in responding towards the fight against the deadly Ebola virus in Sierra Leone,' the President said. 'We have not been provided with enough equipment, resources, qualified health officers, and we have lost the only expert we had in the country to the disease amidst the declaration of the international health emergency on Ebola.'"
The release further quotes him as saying, "I believe the international community should rise up to the occasion", adding, "I think we have made an appeal to the international community and we have taken the measures that we should take, but we still do not have much response and I am disappointed at them over the delays to respond to the situation".
Then came Friday 15 August and he was addressing his first ever presser, yes for the first time since the outbreak that started in May. There, the president urged the world to come to the rescue of his country to deal with the disease stressing that the country needed treatment centres and laboratories which it did not have the capacity to provide.
"Because of the nature of the spread, as a nation we require more treatment centres" he said, adding that those centres in Kenema and Kailahun were now overwhelmed.
Looking gloom-faced and challenging the world to help, Koroma said "...when there was an appeal for the world to support Kuwait [in the 1990s] we were there...When there was an appeal to support Haiti [during the earthquake] we supported. We are in Darfur supporting, Somalia supporting...This is a call we are now making to the world because we need treatment centres...We need clinicians that require specialised training, we don't have that. We need nurses that require specialised training we don't have that. We need sprayers that require specialised training we don't have that. And if our people are dying, the response should be an extraordinary response because it is an extraordinary situation. We must limit the bureaucracy and come and save our people as we are doing to ensure peace in our countries and to save the lives of other nationals of other countries".
And he was not done yet as he went on: "W.H.O., I have just urged them to increase their responsiveness because of where we are...We need a more robust response to the nature of the disease and the way it is affecting us. It is an extraordinary situation and we require an extraordinary response. That is why we wanted a quick response. It's only after our meeting in Conakry that WHO went out to urge the other partners and then we heard from the World Bank. And all of these are pronouncements, and they still have to go through processes...and time is of the essence. That is why I wanted a quick response as it is happening in other countries. We see how responses are effected in other countries when they are confronted with similar circumstances...Respond in time because if you don't come now you wait for another two months, three months, it is going to affect us".
Strong talk and tough call! One could tell the president was and remains angry that help has not come quickly and enough. But does he not share the blame? This is a time we would rather deal with this monster called Ebola than playing the blame game. But since the president has set the ball rolling just a quick one on that.
The index case of the current Ebola outbreak has been traced to a two-year-old who died somewhere in Guinea in December 2013. More generally, March is regarded as when record-taking began. When the March outbreak emerged in Guinea, all we heard from our authorities was that surveillance was on and the health sector was on the alert. Koroma's government failed to engage the health care workers including the Nurses' Association and the Sierra Leone Medical and Dental Association like Nigeria did with its first unexpected case and like Ghana is doing now even without a known diagnosed case. The world body should have taken a cue from our president and his administration and done what we wish they had done. He did not provide any such lead or leadership.
It took President Koroma five weeks to utter a word about the rampaging, ravaging disease. This, despite several forebodings by some members of the press that he needed to sit upright and take charge of the situation. He failed to do so on time.
It took the president about 10 weeks into the outbreak to visit any of the areas affected by the disease. And that was after senior World Health Organisation executive had flown into the country and visited Kailahun and Kenema.
I understand, rightly or wrongly, that in a meeting at the initial stages of the outbreak, the WHO suggested that a known experienced Ugandan doctor be brought in to help. That, my source says, was rebuffed by the government saying our health workers were prepared and up to the task. Where are the virologists?
It is unbelievable that almost three months into the onset of Ebola in Sierra Leone Freetown does not have a laboratory or a treatment centre. The government is busy second-guessing and navel-gazing.
Look at the way Ghana is responding to the threat. Agreed they have learned from our mistakes and folly but so should we have learned from Liberia which first suffered from the outbreak in Guinea. The Ghanaian government has taken precautionary measures and is even setting up treatment centres without a single diagnosed case in the country. Medics have been put on a high state of alert. With such a move the world community has no option but to take up from the cue provided by Ghana.
Generally I would agree with the president lashing out at the international community but only after pointing out that by both his action and inaction the accuser was also cavalier several weeks into the outbreak. But I agree that the decision by the WHO to wait until over 1,000 people had died in the region before launching a fundraiser was shocking to me. I bet my lifesaving that if the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or any viral haemorrhagic fevers were to break out in certain other parts of the world, it would be taken far more seriously from the get-go. Yes, because the governments in those countries would be far more responsive and responsible than ours, but also because IT IS NOT IN AFRICA. I hate playing the race card but such lukewarm intervention by the world body irresistibly tempts one to so do.
Ebola is new to us. But certainly not new to the WHO. Imagine our health care workers are only now being trained on the use of the Personal Protective Equipment, a gear they need to look after an Ebola patient. Should the UN health agency not have advised for this even before the disease got here?! Never mind the provision of such gear.
Additionally, here is a government which believes an effective way to raise public awareness is through doling out huge sums of money to certain irrelevant organisations to print t-shirts with the inscription "EBOLA" and that will raise awareness. What a joke! It does not require rocket science to know that the most effective way from the outset was to have engaged the Independent Radio Network and those radio stations not a part of the network in a country where over 80% who listen to radio trust what they hear (courtesy of an old Hirondelle Fondation survey). This would have made people believe and embark on precautionary measures. Additionally town criers. That would cost less and prove far more efficient. So give a cane to the president to whip the WHO, but also give an assegais to the masses to deal with their president for his initial failure in this fight which just might have brought Ebola to where it is today - beyond Kailahun.
(C) Politico 21/08/14
