Ebola and the American fear factor...

The raging debate amidst the increasingly rising anger among Kenyans regarding the setting up of an "Ebola" Quarantine facility in Nanyuki under the auspices of the US Government reminds me of a study tour I made in the USA in April, 1995.

Just as the one month tour was coming to an end, the dreaded Ebola disease broke out in the Congo with devastating results as I made my way back to Kenya. 

On arriving back home, I was bombarded with both Phone and Fax enquiries from the many friends I had made during the US tour, inquiring if I had arrived home safely and if I was safe from the Ebola outbreak. 

They were happy to hear I was safe, but I had to go to greater lengths to explain to them that the deadly disease had broken out in Congo which is in Central Africa, and not in Kenya, which is in East Africa.

Incidentally, many ordinary Americans seem to have a distorted image of Africa and some of them even think that Africa is "one big country" whose capital is South Africa, but now with the advent of internet, probably the perception has changed or is changing.

• WHO declares international emergency as Ebola kills over 80 in DR Congo
• Duale: No Ebola in Kenya as DRC outbreak kills 88, reaches Uganda
• Duale: Three suspected Ebola cases tested negative, surveillance upped
• WHO warns of rising Ebola threat as Kenya tightens response efforts

I recall one moment at a Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia, where a waiter, a young American Chinese, on learning that I was from Kenya, he excitedly asked me whether I was a Maasai and if indeed I had already killed a lion "with my bare hands" to which I replied in the affirmative. The young man was so excited that he even asked me to bare my hands for him to see and touch the "lion killer hands." I was not only excited but equally amused during the friendly banter with the young man. In fact, I always laugh whenever I recall that fond memory.

I made a second visit to the US in 2017, about 22 years later, only to discover that the wrong perceptions by ordinary Americans about the Africa continent hadn't changed much.

And over 30 years later and in a strange twist of events, both Kenya and Congo find themselves in the middle of a storm of global proportions and magnitude, because of the current Ebola pandemic in Congo.

From the foregoing, I tend to think that Americans probably fear Ebola more than any other known disease.

In retrospect, when all is said and done, the truth of the matter is that everybody in the whole world fears Ebola.

Joseph Kamuto is a media practitioner