A talk delivered by Umaru Fofana at the 9th World Conference of Science Journalists, Seoul, South Korea, 10 June 2015
Good morning everyone. I would like to thank the WCSJ for inviting me to this year’s conference to share with you my experience in reporting on Ebola. And at a time like this when the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is wreaking havoc here in South Korea – and by the way my wife says I face a two-week quarantining on my return home (Smile) – I hope shared thoughts here would be helpful for both the Korean government which seems to be fighting a virus as much as it is fighting fear and panic, and journalists covering the twists and turns.
To the government of Korea it is not helpful that the names of the two hospitals where almost all the MERS cases so far have emanated from were kept in secret until just a few days ago, especially for a country where it is a crime to make such a disclose without official release. As for the journalists – local and foreign – let’s get started.
On a rather funny, however serious note let me summarise in one minute my experience coming here to Seoul which probably illustrates the problems posed by knee jerk reactions to outbreaks, however well-intentioned.
I got upgraded, perhaps not the right word, to first class on the plane for the last 30 minutes or so of our 10-hour flight from Frankfurt. This is because they wanted to easily access me as a potential Ebola risk – coming from Sierra Leone – to take me to the quarantine section of the Seoul airport. Not to mention the indignity I had to endure, like Martin has already told you, to be able to secure a visa to come here one of them being an Ebola-free certificate as required by the Korean embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. Despite getting that certificate, I was twice taken to the quarantine section at the airport here. But that’s not what I am here to talk about.
I have covered a bloody rebel war where I was shot and tortured. I have reported on violent elections whose clashes sometimes left me injured. I have had to sit on a rickety helicopter to travel to cover the crash of another helicopter. In all that I never felt as frightened as I did reporting on the latest Ebola outbreak. Although with the benefit of hindsight and knowing the precautions, I would rather cover such an outbreak than gun-wielding political party militants in any country in west Africa. But as I say that’s with hindsight.
In a country where even medics were clueless about how to protect themselves months into the outbreak, I had no idea how to safeguard myself. Nor did any other journalists in the country. And like the health workers themselves, even though a lot was expected of journalists, no training was provided for us to be able to do so unscathed. It was a miracle that the virus claimed the lives of only two journalists in Sierra Leone. The figure could have been a lot more.
It all started on the 25 May 2014 when the UN World Health Organisation declared Ebola in Sierra Leone. A pregnant woman had miscarried in Kailahun on the border with Guinea and Liberia and been brought to a health facility in Kenema, bleeding profusely. Days later she would test positive for the virus.
As a Sierra Leonean journalist working for global media outlets such as the BBC and Reuters, it was very difficult getting the news beyond the official figures. I know I am talking in the past tense as if the outbreak is over. In fact it is not. On one day alone this week five new cases were recorded. However significant even a single new case is important the figures have reduced very dramatically – from those days in September through to November 2014 when hundreds of new cases were recorded weekly in Sierra Leone alone, to single digits now being registered, and with Liberia having been declared free of the virus.
Even before WHO confirmed Ebola in Sierra Leone, a senior health ministry official had told me that the death of a boy in a border village, was epidemiologically linked to Ebola. The health ministry official would later face ostracism from his political bosses for saying that to me.
In late June 2014 I braved it to Kenema, one of only two epicenters at the time. I have to say that this was much against the advice of the BBC – who I work for – on grounds it was not safe for me. But I thought I had an overriding public interest to pursue beyond reporting on the daily new cases which I thought was not telling the real story. The president had still not said a word in public about the outbreak despite dozens having been already killed. So I pitched the story with Reuters who reminded me of the strict Ebola reporting guidelines and asked that I should be in touch with MSF for advice at every step of the way. That trip would later be regarded by many as a wakeup call to the authorities to respond to the outbreak. The president would later address the nation on the matter – but it would take him another five weeks before visiting any of the flashpoints.
Often foreign journalists would be accused of being insensitive to cultural practices in reporting on and in Africa. Being a local journalist working for foreign media organisations – even if I also did so for my own local newspaper, POLITICO – should be a big advantage, one would think. I knew the players including the country’s sole virologist, Dr Sheik Umar Khan – who would be later claimed by the virus shortly after granting me which was perhaps his last interview, as well as many other health workers. But there was so much politics in Sierra Leone’s Ebola response that I was often given information anonymously or not at all.
To force the government to take the outbreak seriously – and to drum up international attention and support to help stem the spread of Ebola – I worked round the clock with key players expressing their concerns to me. This was when the world media attention in the outbreak was superficial.
While my reporting helped in some ways especially in the UK where my voice was often heard on all BBC outlets, back home I was often criticised and at times accused of blowing the outbreak out of proportion, and “driving away investors” as some government officials and their lapdogs in the local media would put it.
Sierra Leone is a country where the freedom of the journalist can be at the behest of politicians – the state can often arrest journalists – especially local ones and detain them for days unend. Parliament summoned journalists for their coverage of the outbreak – and obviously intimidated them and the rest of the local media fraternity. This had adverse effect on what we could or couldn’t write or say, not least with a state of emergency in place.
In Sierra Leone parliament has the power to order the detention of people. So it is risky business to challenge the House especially with the emergency measures in force. The country’s Attorney General even said on a local radio that the country’s constitution was effectively suspended – including civil liberties. This is a country in which there is criminal defamation under which truth is not a defence. In Liberia the government attempted to do the work of local journalists for them and they were often accused of intimidating the press. The situation is even most repressive in Guinea where even in the best of times media freedom is marginal.
I believe very strongly that the coming of foreign journalists into the affected countries did a lot of good in that it brought the situation to light in cities across the world – in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, United Kingdom, the United States and even to the top of the United Nations agenda which prompted the world to intervene.
That said some of these journalists may have shown complete disrespect for patients (confidentiality and privacy) and thrown away ethical issues in the process by publishing photographs of them lying in their urine, or faeces, etc. A bit of respect would still have told the same story. And stereotype took the best of some of them – impoverished, war-battered nations, etc were common registers utilized. They also often made western health workers look like the only people involved in the fight. So I would say thus: Western media raised global awareness of Ebola in west Africa and pricked the conscience of world leaders. But their focus on Western medics ignored the real heroism shown by local medics who didn't have the luxury of going on leave every month, getting flown abroad if they got infected and a decent pay. Ebola claimed the lives of hundreds of them.
I speak here for all of them but with special emphasis on the Sierra Leone Army medics and their team of civilian volunteers who revived hundreds of Ebola patients who got well again. Not once, not twice, foreign news crews asked me for dedicated, heroic health workers in the fight and I suggested to them the all-Sierra Leonean-run military centres outside Freetown and they would rather have those run by Western countries. That said it has to be added that foreign medics who intervened to save the situation perhaps did not have to do so at the risk of their lives. So they deserve a huge commendation.
To a certain extent the same could be said of local journalists and foreign journalists. Western journalists had that which we did not have – especially a medical cover. I fell ill a few times and had to isolate myself without my children knowing. Thankfully after a day or two my health normalised. If Ebola had been the cause of my illness I would have had to make do with the not-very-great facilities on the ground which Western health workers and journalists were taken away from.
My then two-year-old daughter ran exceedingly high on temperature spreading panic in the family. If what she had was Ebola I would most definitely have been the conduit for the transmission because I was the only one exposed to infection as the kids were all placed in virtual prison.
Radio is the biggest and most trusted medium in most of Africa. Affordability and easy access to transistor radio in countries where less than 10% of the population have access to electricity puts radio way ahead of television, and illiteracy means they cannot read the newspapers. Radio therefore proved very useful in sending out campaign messages and informing people about what was happening. And the local media did a great of this.
Ebola is not yet over. It is still a threat to Sierra Leone and Guinea as is the danger of waning world attention to the situation. I dare even say even Liberia is not totally free because, as that country’s president has said, until the neighbouring countries are declared Ebola-free it will be hard for them to remain so. So the world must not leave Sierra Leone until it is certified by the WHO to be free. And even then, the world must help build the health care delivery systems in those three countries whose health infrastructure was battered by war and long years of neglect. And then we the citizens will start demand for answers in the health sector from our leaders.
(C) Politico 11/06/15
