Ebola Outbreak and Ghana's Porous Borders

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York August 8, 2014

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

That Ghana's geographical location makes the country quite vulnerable to the possible spread of the Ebola virus cannot be gainsaid. For what appears to be clear about a country's candidacy for the spread of the virus is civil strife or the after effects thereof. It is quite instructive to observe that nearly all the countries in which Ebola first made its deadly presence felt have experienced some form of warfare in recent years. Among such countries are Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the former Zaire.

The disease has also, reportedly, appeared in Guinea; which is not altogether surprising, in view of the fact that Guinea-Conakry is located next to Sierra Leone on the northeastern border of the latter country. Very likely, the spread of the Ebola virus into Guinea has to do with the movement of infected persons crossing in from Sierra Leone. The preceding situation, of course, makes me worried quite a bit about Ghana, gauging from the fact that our western next-door neighbor, Cote d'Ivoire, emerged out of a prolonged and brutal civil war - the Gbagbo-Ouattara power struggle - not very long ago. And Cote d'Ivoire, of course, is located immediately to the east of Liberia.

Interestingly and fortunately, however, no known cases of the virus has as of yet been reported in Cote d'Ivoire. This does not necessarily mean that the disease is ever likely to make any deadly incursion into that country. There may well be another equally significant factor - and it is obviously the fact that economically, Cote d'Ivoire is relatively better developed than almost each and every one of its western neighbors, including Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso and Mali. Since the end of the Gbagbo-Ouattara slugfest, also, there has occurred a remarkable level of political stability and economic development. The level of infrastructural development of Cote d'Ivoire also appears to be relatively higher than that of its western neighbors.

"Infrastructure," in the preceding context, has primarily to do with public health and environmental hygiene; and the breakdown of the latter appears to have determined which countries would become prime candidates for the infection and spread of Ebola. Now, don't get me wrong, the easy movement of infected victims of Ebola has a potency that is nearly equal to that of poor public health and environmental hygiene of any particular country. But in the end, much depends on the level of commitment on the part of the various national governments in the West African sub-region towards the development and maintenance of their public health systems.

Presently, Ghana is grappling with an epidemic of cholera which, we are told, is fast becoming an annual ritualistic occurrence of a bizarre sort. What this tells the reader is that the level of Ghana's public health and environmental systems has fallen to precipituously unacceptable lows. It also means that should Ebola strike the country, the results are highly likely to be as damning as those recorded in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Nigeria, the most populous state in the sub-region, has also recorded several cases of the Ebola virus, but these are known to have been exported there by infected air travellers from the Ebola-wracked countries.

And so the bitter complaint by Ghana's Director of Public Affairs for that country's Immigration Service, to wit, that of the 42 officially recognized entry points into the country, only 4 have personnel who are prepared to handle the problem, is neither here nor there (See "Ebola Scare: Only 4 of Ghana's 42 Entry Points Secured" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/28/14). According to Mr. Francis Palmdeti, only the entry points at Aflao, to the southeast, Elubo, the southwest, Paga, up-north and Accra's Kotoka International Airport (KIA) have personnel who are prepared to handle the problem.

As of this writing (8/8/14), no officially known command and control center had be established by the Mahama government to deal with the problem. Even the Public Health Director of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Philip Amoo, vehemently decries the fact that little or virtually nothing has, so far, been done to prepare the country's healthcare professionals to deal with a contingent outbreak of Ebola: "People in authority talk sanctimoniously, but when you get to the ground, things are nowhere near what they are talking about." Dr. Amoo soberly adds, "Even universal precautions are inadeqate in our offices, let alone this extensive protection that is required."

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