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What About Bird Flu? By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye Politics is in the air. It is so thick and overwhelmingly palpable. Nothing else grabs the front pages and prominent spots in the media any more than the big (and most of the time, empty, uninspiring) speeches, stratagems, chicaneries, and wild pursuits of men and women fighting to secure elective positions in Nigeria. They want to take their turns to “eat” like many others are presently doing. Who knows, this might be their last opportunity to join the “Eating Class”, so, they are putting everything into it, both fair and foul.
Moreover, they know too
well, that those presently occupying the positions they want to capture
are not willing to lose their meal tickets without very serious, dirty
fight. So, great preparations are on, everywhere, to deploy whatever it
takes to not only wage this war but win it. Those who lack the liver and
villainy it usually takes to fight the battle are filing behind those
better equipped to do so, singing their praises, fawning around them,
and running several, and often, very demeaning errands for them, with
the hope that if they eventually capture the offices they are after,
they can appoint them into juicy positions where they too can get their
own shares of the national wealth.
Now, I do not deny that
there may be a couple of honest politicians out there, motivated to seek
political power by purely altruistic considerations; the problem is that
they are too few to be detected among the intimidating crowd of
potential looters. It is that bad.
At the Presidency,
governance (or lack of it) has since been hurriedly folded up like a
disused mat, and dumped in one small, dark, dirty corner. All energy,
resources, creativity, legal magic and fearsome zeal are being
generously deployed to prosecute the grand conspiracy against law and
order, decency and civility, to ensure that those whose faces are
fiercely detested by the mortal gods of the empire are prevented from
even offering themselves for “elections”, while the anointed toadies
and vassals are given a smooth ride to power.
As these “big stories”
compete for prominent spaces in the media, “less important matters” are
consigned to obscure corners. It is from one of those inconsequential
corners that I picked up the issue I am examining today, hoping that
somebody somewhere, would pause to realize that in this era of mad
politics and vulgar struggle for power, a clear and present danger
presently stares this hapless nation in the face.
When it was reported
that Nigeria has recorded “the first” human casualty from bird flu, a
World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesperson, Gregory Hartl, said cases
of humans contracting the H5N1 virus in Nigeria should come to no one as
a surprise, considering the experience in a country like Indonesia,
which, like Nigeria, has huge concentrations of poultry where human
beings live.
“It does not change
anything from a public health point of view. It had to happen sooner or
later,” Hartl said.
The New Zealand
Herald of February 1, 2007, quotes
unnamed “experts” as identifying Nigeria as one of the countries that
constitute the “weakest links in the global attempt to stem infections
of birds.”
Now, before our
brother, Frank Nweke jnr., jumps into the square to wage war with the
WHO spokesperson, like he did recently with CNN, for “trying to rubbish
Nigeria’s image”, he and those he speaks for should pause awhile and
consider whether the world would not soon be paying a huge price for
being stupid enough to coexist with an unorganized enclave like Nigeria
at this time in history? Nigeria and Indonesia are considered the
greatest threat to human existence at this time because of the reckless
poultry management that subsist in those two countries, which easily
lays the world bare to the dreaded avian influenza pandemic that wreaked
untold havoc to humanity in 1918. But whereas there are some noticeable
efforts to contain the threat in Jakarta, Nigeria’s response has been
half-hearted, to put it mildly.
We all know that bird
flu is essentially an animal disease, but when it leaves its natural
host and infects humans, it could mutate into a form that could trigger
the dreaded human-to-human infections. When contracted by humans, the
H5N1 virus is said to easily forget what it was originally. “A different
strain”, says a report, “might mutate to cause a pandemic and it would
take many months to produce a vaccine after a pandemic had started.” And
before that vaccine is ready, the virus might mutate further and assume
forms that would resist the vaccine produced. That is why every attempt
is being made around the world to frustrate the possibility of
human-to-human infections. Asked why the United Kingdom was not
stockpiling vaccines like the United States, Italy and France, a
spokeswoman for the UK Department of Health was quoted by the BBC as
saying: “The department does not believe stockpiling vaccines is the
best course to follow, as we cannot be sure what mutation of the virus
would be involved in the pandemic.”
The problem with
Nigeria is that the informal sectors of its economy, which far outnumber
the formal, are too difficult to monitor. Nobody, is even thinking about
organizing the country, and developing systems for effective monitoring
of all forms of business and other activities. So, how can anyone in
this chaos ensure that human beings have less contact with chickens? In
the villages, for instance, most families share the same houses with
their fowls. These fowls are let out each day to go and find food for
themselves, and by evening, they are able to return to their owners,
because of their successful domestication. In the course of their daily
wanderings, they could also have contacts with wild birds, the most
vulnerable hosts of this dreaded virus. Now, who would be able to
medically examine these birds assuming they take ill or die in the
houses of their owners? What is the guarantee that ailing (or even dead)
chickens are still not being slaughtered for dinner in our various
communities, especially, as the effect of the harsh economic conditions
in the country bites harder on the people? Even if they are disposed of,
are any precautions being taken in the course of that to prevent
infection?
Now, we are talking
about the villages, what of the so-called cities? In this era of
“reforms”, when the emphasis is on the empowerment of private hands, who
has accurate records of the number of people in several crannies that
responded to the challenge and raised small poultry farms beside their
houses, especially, in densely, populated areas like, Ajegunle, Badia (Amukoko),
Obalende, Ebute Metta, Agege, to cite a few examples in Lagos? The
chickens that die regularly, which the poultry owners either throw away
or cook for lunch, who is trying to determine what kills them?
There is even a worse
situation. In our markets, chickens displayed for sale enjoy almost
infinite proximity and “interactions” with humans. Pay a visit to
Onipanu market in Lagos, for instance, and see for yourself, how
vulnerable Nigeria is to this virus, and how unconcerned the authorities
are about the dreaded pandemic that is chilling the spine of the rest of
the world. Now, it is not only those at those marketplaces that are at
great risk; even someone driving past is clearly threading a minefield.
Why is Nigeria cursed with leaders who are so selfish, callous and
inept, to the point of self-destruction? Are they aware that HN51 virus
does not know the “big man” or “His Excellency”?
Okay, we have announced
the death of the “first” victim of bird flu because she died in a formal
hospital, but that industrious neighbourhood poultry owner who died in
his sleep after a “brief fever” somewhere in Isale Eko or Ilaje, and was
mourned and quietly buried by his family and friends in a nearby
cemetery, who was able to carry out an autopsy to determine the cause of
death? Is it the medicine vendor that sold to him the paracetamol he
took on the eve of his death that would do that or who? What a country!
When birds are infected
in a particular farm, they can be quarantined and slaughtered. When
humans are infected, it is a different matter entirely. Such a person
could either survive or die. Some experts say he has fifty percent
chances of either surviving or dying. Early detection could help, but in
Nigeria where majority of the people keep patronizing the nearby
“chemist” until they are almost gasping for breath, before they think of
going to the hospital, one can imagine what to expect. And nobody can
dictate to the virus how long it should stay in a human being before its
mutations commence. Moreover, in the event of the dreaded human-to-human
infections, vaccines may be unhelpful because, the virus may take on a
form that is resistant to all existing vaccines.
In an article I read
last Sunday captioned, “Avian Flu Pandemic Threatens The World”(Nov.
20, 2005), the author, Stephen Mikesell, said: “That the H5N1
influenza is reported to have already spread to both pigs and felines
indicates that it is prone to the reallocation needed to spread to the
human population. And because it has never infected humans before, the
human immune system is unable to recognize and attack it, making it
extremely lethal to the people who contract it… The high rates of
mortality experienced by people contracting the virus from birds has
health experts extremely worried. Its initial mortality rate was 50
percent, but in recent months it seems to have been becoming more lethal
with a rate of 70 percent. In comparison, the 1917-1918 influenza
pandemic, a bird flu which killed 40 million people worldwide, had a
mortality rate of just 5 percent.”
By 1918, when the world witnessed the
pandemic, human mobility was highly limited due to non-availability of
effective transportation. International trade and interactions between
nations were minimal. But today, airplanes have reduced the distance
between countries, and tourism, business expansions, increased
understanding and co-operations have turned the world to a global
village. If any part of the world is hit by the pandemic today,
virtually no nation would be spared. Millions of lives could be lost.
That is why all eyes are on Nigeria.
And when will this disastrous bomb
explode? Well, it could be any time. Or it may never. Last Monday, I
read an article on BirdfluBook.com captioned: “Two Minutes To
Midnight”. In it, a Harvard epidemiologist was quoted as
saying: “It would be irresponsible to say we are absolutely going to get
there this year or next year because we just don’t understand virus
evolution enough. It is, I think, correct to say that we are in a period
where the risk is growing and where it’s higher than we’ve ever known it
to be.” Although, says the writer, “what most scientists do agree on is
that each day brings us one day closer to the pandemic, though they
admit it is unknown which virus will ultimately trigger the pandemic or
how severe the next one will be.”
But can this pandemic be averted? Of course, yes. That is if countries like Nigeria could rouse themselves from their current fatal slumber, and tell themselves that this is not one of those matters, where the smoothest talker carries the day. People were almost concluding that the scare was over until the report of what the Nigerian authorities think is the “first death” from the virus in the country came out. Let’s not even dream of managing the pandemic because, if better governed countries, with functional health institutions still feel they are not prepared enough, Nigeria, with its failed systems, would certainly not be able to lift a finger should the pandemic break out. Like this country has always done in the face of virtually every challenge, it would rather empower its propaganda machines to go on disputing the casualty figures until the person heading the propaganda team is himself or herself claimed by the pandemic. That is where we are, dear reader.
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Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye writes a column (SCRUPLES)
in the Independent Newspaper (www.independentngonline.com
) every Wednesday. EMAIL:
scruples2006@yahoo.com; MY BLOG:
http://ugochukwu.blog.com
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