Ebola is a world problem; not just West Africa - Mahama
President John Mahama has called on world leaders to embrace Ebola as a worldwide problem that is not restricted only to West Africa “because it’s a disease that knows no boundaries”.
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According to him, the stigma attached to the disease had created fear and panic among people in affected countries, thus causing them to abandon their cultural rights of washing, embalming and burying their dead.
“Ebola is not just a Liberian problem; Ebola is not a Sierra Leonean or Guinean problem. It is not just a West African problem. Ebola is a problem that belongs to the world because it is a disease that knows no boundaries,” he said in his address at the 69th United Nations General Assembly, Thursday.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the number of Ebola cases could quadruple to more than 20,000 by early November in the absence of monumental efforts to slow the rate of transmission.
So far, the WHO’s official count for the outbreak has surged past 5,800 people infected and 2,800 deaths.
President Mahama noted that the initial slowness of the international community to respond to the initial outbreak of the disease could be a cause of the virus spreading quickly and claiming many lives.
According to him, "what makes Ebola so dangerous is that the virus dares us to compromise the impulses that exist at the very core of our humanity: our impulse to comfort one another with love; to care for each other with the healing power of touch; and, to maintain the dignity of our loved ones even in death with a public funeral and properly marked grave.
"Ebola is a disease of isolation. It leaves family members afraid to embrace one another, healthcare workers afraid to attend to patients, and it forces the living to abandon the cultural rites of washing, embalming and burying their dead. Instead they are zipped into a secure body bag, carried on a stretcher by make shift pallbearers in protective wear, then tossed into a freshly dug grave."
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President Mahama therefore, commended the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for establishing the United Nations Missions for Ebola Emergency Response in Accra.
President Mahama also thanked President Obama and the United States of America for their commitment to the fight against the Ebola virus.