Information sharing over the Ebola threat critical

The forecast by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres that he current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa will take about six months to control, calls for a re-look at our national psyche and strategies.

The World Health Organisation has also indicated the outbreak, which had infected 2,127 and killed 1,145 people by Friday, may be bigger than previously estimated.

The import of this is remarkable considering in the past many episodic disease outbreaks such as the Rift Valley Fever, aflatoxin poisoning or even highland malaria have largely been short, sharp and predictable.

Already, the threat of an accidental entry of the virus into the country has created high levels of anxiety, sometimes translating into speculation, unfounded rumours and false alarms.

It is definitely true that this hyper sensitivity is not healthy and may be difficult to sustain for a considerable period of time.

There is also no doubt that the country cannot let down its guard but a long period of false alarms could lead to the phenomenon of the boy who cried wolf once too often. To most, the disaster that befell him is all too well known.

This state of affairs has further being acerbated by poor flow of information mainly from the Ministry of Health and Kenya Medical Research Institute to the media and by large the public.

While top managers in these institutions have individually been quite accessible, there lacks structured communication channels where the public or the media can tap into and get updates. This is crucial, especially when rumours may be flying around some may be claiming that an infected person is walking around in a public place.

At this age of web postings and digital alerts, these institutions which have fully manned and sophisticated public communications units, have no excuse not to be proactive. A well-functioning communication unit could go a long way in defusing potentially destructive rumours before they get wings to fly.

Our prayers are of course for the virulent virus not to find its way into our country but this is not enough because as long as it is creating havoc elsewhere, it will forever hang over our heads like the sword of Damocles.

Hence this calls for a three-pronged approached consisting of short, median and long term strategies. Recent pronouncements by the Cabinet Secretary for Health indicate that the short term precautions are in place but he must move fast to operationalise the longer term plans.

In the event that the virus is contained in West Africa, there is no doubt interest among majority of Kenyans will wane. But it must be remembered that the containment of the virus in one location of the globe just minimises the danger but does not eliminate it. This means the responsible authorities must put in place trustworthy structures that will effectively continue to monitor, isolate and even treat cases even when the current public curiosity wanes.

However, we must have faith that such institutions can be trusted to deal with the virus so that the rest of the country can go back to normalcy without the unnecessary bursts of panic.

It must also be noted that a six-month siege by the virus will be an expensive affair and will require significant human and financial resources which must be made available because not doing so could lead to a bigger crisis.

But also more important, Kenya should either singly or jointly with others, put resources in funding drug development research addressing Ebola and a host of other emerging diseases.

The country has made significant inroads in mitigating against the spread of other diseases and slowing down the infection rate of HIV among other dangerous pathogens. There is no reason why a more sustained approach to safeguarding Kenyans from infections from other more virulent forms of pathogens cannot be developed.