Friday, August 15, 2014

Fury as Newspapers calls Ebola an African Zombie disease

Newspapers and magazines are reporting the Ebola virus as an African "zombie of the disease" a decision that has caused alot of fury in the African community.
Ebola an African Zombie disease

. A patient infected with the Ebola virus will be in a coma or fainting condition, because the clinical signs and death are very similar, so often think the patient has died. However, a few hours or a few days later, the patient suddenly wakes up and go into a very aggressive state, biting objects all sports, including humans and animals.

Ebola seems to be more deadly than HIV but why call it an African Zombie disease? The people may only become weaker after losing a lot of blood, but they do not attack others.

Xinhua, a Chinese based media, contrary to chatter on the internet, agrees with osaseye that Ebola is not a “zombie disease.”

“An Ebola sufferer may lose consciousness or faint, making him or her appear dead,” Xinhua explains. “But a few hours or even days later the patient may suddenly come to and enter an extremely violent state, tearing at and biting anything that moves, including people and animals.”

Staff with the World Health Organisation battling an Ebola outbreak in West Africa see evidence the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimates the scale of the outbreak, the U.N. agency said on its website on Thursday.

The death toll from the world's worst outbreak of Ebola stood on Wednesday at 1,069 from 1,975 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, the agency said. The majority were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, while four people have died in Nigeria. 

The agency's apparent acknowledgement the situation is worse than previously thought could spur governments and aid organisations to take stronger measures against the virus. "Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," the organisation said on its website. " 

WHO is coordinating a massive scaling up of the international response, marshalling support from individual countries, disease control agencies, agencies within the United Nations system, and others." International agencies are looking into emergency food drops and truck convoys to reach hungry people in Liberia and Sierra Leone cordoned off from the outside world to halt the spread of the virus, a top World Bank official said.

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