China Joins Fight Against Ebola

Chinese Foreign Ministry has announced plans to join the fight against the deadly Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa.

Tribune reports that the ministry’s spokesperson, Hong Lei, who made this known in Beijing on Wednesday, said the country promised to work with other international community in curtailing the disease in the region.

READ ALSO: Celebrities, Activists Hold #BlockEbola Campaign In Lagos

Lei, who further revealed that a 59-member Chinese laboratory team, with 30 doctors and 29 laboratory technicians on Tuesday left Beijing, said: “They will work at the Sierra Leone-China Friendship Hospital to help Sierra Leone improve lab testing.”

According to him, this is the recent effort by China to help the fight against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

The spokesman also stated that China had earlier dispatched medical supplies and 115 medical experts to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau.

READ ALSO: Obama Refuses To Send Ebola Drug To Africa

Lei, however, pointed out that the move was to show that China and Africa, as friends in need, were friends indeed as well as demonstrate Chinese people’s international humanitarianism.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has also requested the sum of $1billion about N165 billion to help fight the outbreak of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease EVD, in West Africa.

It would be recalled that on September 14, 2014, in response to the unabated increase in number of deaths recorded so far from the EVD outbreak in West Africa, United States President, Barack Obama, hinted on  plans to boost his country’s involvement in the war against the deadly disease after it initially announced that it has already committed around $100 million to tackle the outbreak by providing protective equipment for healthcare workers, food, water, medical and hygiene equipment.

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The Untold Story Of Ebola Virus

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been described by the World Health Organisation, WHO, and historians to have the potential to cause havoc as much as any plague has ever done in the history of mankind.

According to the WHO, the deadly Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, ravaging the West Africa have recorded more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months.

Only last week, the United Nations agency warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and 

Osterholm claimed the world is in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the Ebola virus disease.

Below are full texts of the opinion:

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.

There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.

READ ALSO: Nigeria Seeks Local Cure For Ebola

There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.

The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world.

This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages.

But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africa’s population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums.

What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu — or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?

The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air.

However, on Thursday, 11 September, 2014, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, USA, Michael T. Osterholm, in an opinion piece he wrote for the New York Times, revealed that there are things about the Ebola virus that are not getting said publicly despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies.

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