The Ebola outbreak in parts of West Africa is currently (i.e. in March and April of 2014) in the news. The information one gets in Nigeria is however worryingly little and vague, sometimes simply false.
As early as 22 March, the Voice of America gave details of an Ebola outbreak in Guinea. A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) outlines the cases and casualties of the outbreak up to 1 April. The report refers to the Ministry of Health of Guinea,; stating that the country has seen 127 cases of which 35 have been laboratory confirmed and 83 deaths. The disease also showed up in neighbouring Liberia. Its Ministry of Health and Social Welfare gave the number of 8 cases and 5 deaths. Another 2 deaths were reported in Liberia.
The Nigerian Punch is one of the newspapers covering the current Ebola outbreak. In an article from the 26 March, the Punch informed us about the Federal Government's announcement to take "proactive measures to ensure that the outbreak of Ebola disease in neighbouring (sic) West African country, Guinea, does not come to Nigeria". Not only was this not followed up by concrete plans (all the article mentioned are planned discussions about the situation and a vague reference to the monitoring of travellers from the affected area), it also ignored the fact that there are ...
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