-“Breaking news!!! The first case of Ebola has been reported in Nigeria”-“The Ebola carrier was in contact with *** ministers and *** people’-“Ebola gets into the United States” -“It is advisable not to hug or shake hands” -“A Nigerian doctor based in the United States, Maurice Iwu, has claimed that Garcinia kola, popularly called bitter kola in West Africa may be a possible drug against the deadly Ebola virus” It seems like everywhere I turn, there is a new update, I almost cannot keep up and it is pretty scary and the irony is that Nigerians have started making jokes about it, it’s like making jokes of scary stuff is our coping mechanism, very insensitive! Let us not be afraid , I pray it won’t get to any of us but there are some precautions and steps we need to know and take. I hope at the end, you would be able to make sense of all the information shared here. EBOLA virus: The guideline from the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation. • The suspected reservoirs for Ebola are fruit bats.
• Transmission to humans is thought to originate from infected bats or primates that have become infected by bats.
• Undercooked infected bat and primate (bush meat) transmits the virus to humans.
• Human to human transmission is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill from the Ebola virus or their body fluids.
• Transmission among humans is almost exclusively among caregiver family members or health care workers tending to the very ill.
• The virus is easily killed by contact with soap, bleach, sunlight, or drying. A washing machine will kill the virus in clothing saturated with infected body fluids.
• A person can incubate the virus without symptoms for 2-21 days, the average being 5-8 days before becoming ill. THEY ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS until they are acutely ill.
• Only when ill does the viral load express itself first in the blood and then in other bodily fluids (to include vomit, faeces, urine, breast milk, semen and sweat).
• If you are walking around you are not infectious to others.
• There are documented cases from Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of an Ebola outbreak in a village that had the custom of children never touching an ill adult. Children living for days in small one room huts with parents who died from Ebola did not become infected.
• You cannot contract Ebola by handling money, buying local bread or swimming in a pool.
• There is no medical reason to stop flights, close borders, restrict travel or close embassies, businesses or schools.
• As always practice good hand washing techniques, but you will not contract Ebola if you do not touch a dying person. You might want to see this video of Doctor Sanjay Gupta on the Myth of Ebola A lot of information, may only the best thing in life happen to us…This too shall pass.
