I don’t normally buy into conspiracy theories, especially now with the social media craze that allows anyone to post whatever they want on the Internet. A lot has been said about 9/11 and the missing MH370 plane among other things; and while I read or watch whatever people put out there, I always draw my own conclusions. Until now, and it all has to do with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Surely, someone or some people out there have something to do with it, if not the initial contractions, then the subsequent spread of the deadly disease. Over 1,000 people have already died and I doubt that the number of fatalities would have been that high had Ebola broken out in one of the developed nations and not Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or any of the other countries battling the epidemic. Until Dr Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol (both Americans), contracted Ebola, nobody seemed to be paying much attention—and by nobody, I mean the mighty USA. You all know we look up to USA in times like these, so don’t be so quick to dismiss my argument. I commend the two American missionaries, along with the Spanish priest Miguel Pajare, who unfortunately didn’t make it, for volunteering to serve on this ‘Dark Continent.’ However, it’s hard not to conclude that preferential treatment is at play when only these three people initially received ZMapp, the experimental drug credited for keeping Brantly and Writebol alive. Many have gone to great lengths to explain that the reluctance to get the drug to African patients is because it hasn’t been tried on humans and in case of adverse effects, it may cause Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, the manufacturers, trouble, after all, several pharmaceuticals have been fined or even banned in the past for administering untested drugs for ailments such as TB, meningitis and polio to the poor long before their respective cures were found. We all understand that but don’t you think that given the seriousness of the Ebola outbreak, patients and their families should at least have been given a chance to choose their fate, so to speak, since chances of making it without treatment are slim anyway? If I knew there was a chance a drug might work, I would take it. If on the other hand someone else thought the risks were too big and opted out, that would be their decision. Bottom line is that we need fairness in sickness just as we do in health. For someone to withhold a drug because it’s not economically viable to sell to Africa is just wrong, if indeed that’s what happened. I also find it strange that Ebola is incurable nearly 40 years after the first known cases were reported. WHO records indicate that there were two simultaneous outbreaks in 1976, in Nzara, Sudan and the second in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. While HIV/Aids, first reported in 1981 also remains incurable, there has at least been progress in treatment options to the extent that many, even here in Africa can live positively for decades, thanks to Antiretrovirals. That’s why you shouldn’t blame me for thinking someone might be up to something with Ebola.
