New Vision (Kampala)
22 August 2007
Some 50 years ago, the disease situation in the world was relatively stable.
Concern focused on six main diseases: cholera, plague, fever, smallpox, typhus
and yellow fever.
Today, new diseases are emerging at the unprecedented rate of one per year, according to the just released World Health Report 2007.
Population growth, rapid urbanisation, intensive farming practices and environmental degradation have disrupted the equilibrium of the microbial world, giving rise to new diseases, the World Health Organisation argues.
In addition, high mobility, industrialisation of food production and globalisation of distribution allow for infectious diseases to spread faster and further than ever before.
Airlines now carry more than 2 billion passengers per year. A single tainted ingredient can lead to the recall of tons of food items from scores of countries.
Uganda has had more than its share of new diseases. Epidemics previously not heard of, such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola and Marburg, have hit the country in the past two decades, and Rift Valley fever is not far off. In addition, malaria has spread to areas which had previously been spared.
The media play an important role in reporting on new health risks. But this is not an easy task. "They have to strike a difficult balance between saying too much and saying too little: one course of action may cause an overreaction, the other may seem complacent," the report says.
The Government's reaction to the outbreak of the Marburg virus was, therefore, a risky, but brave step. As soon as the first case was confirmed, it informed the media about the health threat. And it kept the public informed on an almost daily basis.
This was all the more brave because it emerged just months ahead of CHOGM. It is what WHO calls 'pro-active risk management', a strategy aimed at detecting an event early and stopping it at its source before it has a chance to become an international threat.
The rapid and open Government strategy has certainly contributed to containing the disease, in the process not only saving other lives but also the CHOGM event. A similar openness significantly contributed to the control of Ebola in 2001 and the reduction in HIV/AIDS prevalence since the 1990s.
Copyright © 2007 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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