Ebola fear ‘infects’ campuses, affects mobile students

The deaths in Nigeria of two medical doctors associated with teaching hospitals, both victims of the dreaded Ebola virus in the horrifying outbreak of the disease in West Africa, has created panic and unsettled nerves on campuses.

There have been no drugs produced that are yet known to combat the deadly virus. It forces the locally unfamiliar practice of cremation, with not even ashes handed over to family for fear of contamination. Inhabitants of entire communities where the disease has broken out have been quarantined, and security forces mobilised to ensure nobody escapes.

It reminds one of Albert Camus’ celebrated novel, The Plague – La Peste.

“Ebola, this deadly disease, is similar to the deadly disease which was graphically dissected in Camus’ novel,” said Folorunso Kizito, a professor of French studies at the University of Osun State in Osogbo, southwest Nigeria. He said he would reintroduce the novel into his literature programme.

Following an Ebola scare Bamidele Omole, vice-chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Osun State, announced that students from the hard-hit countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had been told that they should stay away from campus until further notice.

Earlier, a student at the university who had contact with a medical doctor who died of Ebola, was quarantined in an isolation centre off-campus. The vice-chancellor later announced that blood tests for Ebola had proved negative.

But at many campuses across the country, students from the three countries have also been told not to resume their studies.

The outbreak toll

The number of Ebola cases and deaths in West Africa in the current outbreak now exceeds the totals for all previous outbreaks combined since the first known Ebola outbreak in 1976. A separate outbreak started in the Democratic Republic of Congo last month.

Last week the current West African outbreak was described by World Health Organization – WHO – Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward as “unparalleled in modern times”.

WHO differentiates between three West African countries with “widespread and intense transmission” – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – and Nigeria and Senegal, which have had initial cases with localised transmission.

In an update to its Ebola response roadmap on 16 September, WHO reported 4,963 “probable, confirmed and suspected” Ebola cases and 2,453 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“Nigeria and Senegal have now reported a case or cases imported from a country with widespread and intense transmission. In Nigeria, there have been 21 cases and eight deaths. In Senegal, there has been one case, but as yet there have been no deaths or further suspected cases attributable to Ebola.”

The case of Nigeria

As fate would have it, Ebola entered Nigeria discreetly but deliberately. The first two Nigerian victims, who ultimately became the vehicles through which the disease has spread, were medical doctors affiliated to university teaching hospitals.

In July Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian American who worked for Liberia’s Ministry of Finance, reportedly contracted the virus from a sister who was ill. He had been caring for her.

With little faith in the country’s health system, Sawyer took an international flight to Nigeria and sought treatment at First Consultants Medical Centre in Lagos, a highly-rated hospital that works closely with the University of Lagos teaching hospital.

Dr Ameyo Adadevoh, an endocrinologist who graduated from the college of medicine at the University of Lagos, sent blood samples from Patrick Sawyer to her alma mater for investigation, and it was discovered that he was an Ebola carrier.

Adadevoh refused to let Sawyer be removed from the hospital, despite requests from regional economic officials and Liberian embassy staff, and instead she called in officials of the Ministry of Health. The entire hospital was quarantined. Both Sawyer and Adadevoh died.

Sawyer had worked with the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. Staff of the regional economic body went to meet him at Lagos International Airport, not knowing that he was an Ebola carrier.

Sawyer has subsequently been reviled in the media and by politicians for fleeing Liberia, knowing he had Ebola, to seek better medical attention in Nigeria – and thus spreading the virus to Africa’s most populous state.

Jatto Abdulqudir, an ECOWAS official who met with Sawyer after he landed, also became infected by Ebola and died in August – bringing the death toll in Nigeria at that time to three.

An ECOWAS official who was in contact with Sawyer went to an international hotel in Port Harcourt and secretly sought medical treatment from Dr Ike Sam Enemuo, who worked with the teaching hospital in the city. Enemuo died on 22 August, but the official survived.

The executive council of the Academic Staff Union of Universities cancelled its quarterly meeting scheduled for Lagos State University. The national president of the union, Dr Nasir Issa-Fagee, shifted the meeting to the capital Abuja because of isolated cases of Ebola in Lagos.

“This is just a preventive and proactive measure. We must be careful,” he said.

Solutions needed and sought

Meanwhile, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan released US$10 million as a fund to fight Ebola. He ordered federal agencies to immediately disperse a portion of the funds to the education sectors including universities.

The Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities has access to the funds, and has set up Ebola surveillance committees on campuses. The vice-chancellors have ordered equipment to support preventive and proactive measures to tackle Ebola.

WHO commended Jonathan and his administration for their success in containing the disease, and called on Nigeria to assist other affected countries.

“As long as these countries are still under the yoke of Ebola, Nigeria and Nigerians are not safe from this communicable disease,” warned a WHO official.

Medical researchers in Nigerian universities have suggested that the Africa Union set up well-funded regional medical research centres to work on solutions to communicable diseases including HIV-Aids and Ebola.

“It is clear we cannot depend upon donor countries to seek solutions to our health problems. A pan-African solution is required to these diseases affecting our continent,” said Adewale Suenou of the history and international studies department at Lagos State University.

“Africa has the human and material resources to tackle these problems only if our leaders can summon the political courage.”