It’s no more news that there now exists a dangerous and fatal viral disease known as the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) that is currently ravaging most part and people of the world, especially those in West Africa.
But what seems to be news and a huge puzzle is how come this disease didn’t enjoy the kind of
prominence and knowledge it
now enjoys since its discovery in 1976 until its first case was
recently recorded in Nigeria?
The the answer is not far fetched: because Nigeria is involved. Honestly, it beats my
imagination real good that in
spite of my age, level of
enlightenment, education and
exposure, I knew quite dimly
about this deadly disease. Yes! I
knew little or nothing about it.
And, so did most of my kind out there. But the very moment the Liberian national, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, decided (for only Heaven knows reasons) to visit Nigeria sicked of the ill-fated EVD and got other people infected, the disease instantly gained global prominence and knowledge so much so that even a toddler in the remotest villages in Nigeria and other parts of the world now know something about Ebola.
The disease is only now a global knowledge because it’s now officially existing in Nigeria. Liberia, Sierra Leone and of course Congo Republic, where the rudiments of Ebola was first recorded in 1976, didn’t give the disease the kind of global prominence and course for the attention it deserves all this while until Nigeria came into the fray.
That there are now more concrete efforts and added
impetus to find lasting solutions, in terms of drugs for the cure of EVD, is simply because Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, is now officially affected by the disease.
It’s pretty unimaginable that the
West African countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone, and other African countries have been battling with this disease and yet, the world at large didn’t get this alarmed about the disease the way the Nigeria experience
has made it become. This goes a long way to show that, whether for good or bad, any news about Nigeria is one the whole don’t take for granted.
For instance, there have been
acts of terrorism in the world all
this while, but the very moment
Boko Haram emerged, global
fight against terrorism gained an
unimaginable added impetus.
Honestly, there’s no gain saying
the fact that once Nigeria is
involved, everything, and indeed, the whole wide world is
involved.
Who knows the degree of silent
damage the Ebola Virus Disease would’ve caused mankind in this age if Nigeria didn’t get meddled in it? Your guess is as good as mine.
Though we all hate having this
ugly disease in our shores, we
can’t also ignore the seeming
fact that God is using the
Nigerian experience of this
disease to not only create global
awareness about the disease,
but to put in the heart of men,
the urgent need and ideas
needed to bring this disease to
an end.
The foregoing being the case, I
can’t but say; Ebola Virus Disease: thank God for Nigeria,
the nation God will use to obliterate this ugly disease.
Daniel Ndukwe Ekea writing from Umuahia, Abia state.