Few viruses can boast of being the inspiration for hit dance tunes, but then Ebola — which kills up to 90 percent of its victims, has no vaccine or cure, and causes horrific internal and external bleeding — is not your average pathogen.
When an epidemic struck west Africa’s music-crazy nations of Guinea and Liberia, it spawned mass panic — and the outbreak of a new dance accompanied to a infectious rap song.
“Ebola, Ebola in town. Don’t touch your friend. No kissing, no eating something. It’s dangerous,” warns the chorus of Ebola in Town, looped over a catchy, trippy electro-dance beat. At one point, the rapper describes an attempt to escape Ebola by fleeing to Guinea, only to discover, in lyrics that suggest a stalking ex-lover, the disease lurking there too.
Photo: EPA
Clubbers bitten by the musical bug have come up with a “no touching” jig in roadside bars of the capital, Monrovia.
“With such a high illiteracy rate and such important messages to get across, sometimes a catchy or humorous song is the best way. I still remember ones that were made when I was a child in school here in Liberia,” said bank manager Ethel Knuckles, in her 30s.
Such musical comic relief follows in the tradition of others such as Ivory Coast’s Crazy Chicken, inspired by the avian influenza virus. Aside from comic relief, in a region with weak public health systems, the Ebola song also communicates vital information needed to curb the virus, which is spread through contact with fluids of infected people or animals, such as urine, blood and saliva.
Health workers have raced to contain Ebola’s transmission. When it appeared for the first time in Guinea in March — from where it later jumped to Liberia — popular text messages claimed an antidote could be found in a concoction of hot chocolate, coffee, milk, sugar and raw onions. In Liberia, many initially dismissed Ebola as a way for health officials to rake in money. Few took official advice to abstain from sex — coyly referred to as “no eating something” in the song — seriously.
Hosted by fruit bats, a local delicacy, the “molecular shark” has so far killed 145 people, about two-thirds in Guinea.
“Timing and appropriate healthcare are crucial to whether Ebola spreads and whether victims survive. It needs to be taken very seriously, but there’s a tendency for people to develop a kind of paranoid psychosis about Ebola,” Guinean Ministry of Health official Sakouba Keita said.
For those who do beat the odds, Ebola in Town’s call for “no touching” pre-empts the stigma that often awaits. Health workers say the terrified reactions toward survivors recalls the early days of the HIV epidemic and can even affect relatives.
An added complication is that medics on the front line often face the greatest prejudice.
“You have to be scared of anyone who goes around dressed up like a cosmonaut,” said Fanta Mamadou, a market trader in Nzerekore, Guinea’s second city, where residents initially refused to open their doors to health workers dressed in head-to-toe biohazard suits.
“Stigmatization has now become the main challenge we are dealing with,” said Marc Poncin, emergency coordinator of Medecins Sans Frontieres, whose suspected or confirmed cases have dwindled to seven in Guinea.
Medical workers make a point of accompanying recovered patients on their return home.
“We always hug the patient in front of the family to show it is possible to live normally with a cured person,” Poncin said.
For some survivors, being stigmatized is the least of their worries.
“It feels miraculous to be given a second chance,” said a former patient, who gave only her first name, Rose. “The first thing on my mind when I got home was to hold my children, then give the house a good spring clean.”
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS