9 Components of The Ebola Conspiracy Theory and My Advice to African Leaders

US President with African Leaders

It's really tough not to keep writing about this ebola outbreak in West Africa especially with the growing sea of "conspiracy theories".

Africans are really upset about this ebola outbreak and you can understand why but I would give my recommendations at the end of this article.

Okay these are some of the issues that have given birth to these conspiracy theories:

1) The Tulane University researchers and their Fort Detrick associates in the US biowarfare research community who have been operating in West Africa for some years now. Doing what exactly?

2) This research program has been going on coincidentally in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia where we have the nastiest outbreak of the ebola disease in 2014.

"Researchers from Tulane University have been active for several years in the very same areas where this Ebola outbreak began.  One of the stated purposes of this research was to study "the future use of fever-viruses as bioweapons"

3)The Ministry of Health and Sanitation Sierra Leone put this report on their Facebook page on the 23rd of July:

The EOC members under the leadership of the Honourable Minister of Health and Sanitation unanimously decided at the July 22nd 2014 meeting that the following actions be effected immediately:

• That all new confirmed cases be admitted at the Treatment Center in Kailahun whiles the Ministry and its partners work on relocating the Treatment Center in Kenema out of the Kenema Government Hospital Premise to another location as requested by health workers and the people of Kenema

• The existing patients at the treatment center in Kenema continue to be cared for at that center with enhanced Infection Prevention Control and nursing care

• More health personnel be trained in Infection Prevention Control and nursing care

• Tulane University to stop Ebola testing during the current Ebola outbreak

• Center for Disease Control (CDC) to officially send their findings and recommendations  from the assessment of the laboratory and treatment center in Kenema

• The Ministry of Health and Sanitation to proceed with the procurement of three vehicles currently in country for contact tracing and surveillance

4) Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer was observed by the Airport CCTV to be visibly unwell and avoiding contact with people yet the authorities seemed "powerless" to act on their observation. This was a man who had just lost his sister to the ebola disease.

5) If Patrick Sawyer was "sneaking" out of Liberia as some have said why didn't he sneak back to the US where his family was instead of Nigeria?

6) The Americans infected with the ebola virus where administered the "secret serum" while still in Liberia. How many Liberians have also been "tested" with this "secret serum" since the outbreak?

7)The Navy Times says that the U.S. military has been interested in studying Ebola "as a potential biological weapon" since the 1970s...

8)The United States Center for Disease Control  actually owns a patent on one particular strain of the Ebola virus...

9) President Obama says it would be "premature" to release the serum to Africa yet he recognises the people of Africa as a very important "resource":

"I think we've got to let the science guide us," the president said, adding that he didn't have enough data about the effectiveness of the medicine.

Obama sought to tamp down fears about the latest outbreak and said Ebola was "controllable if you’ve got a strong public health infrastructure in place."

"The United States is determined to be a partner in Africa's success," Obama said on Tuesday. "We don't look to Africa simply for its natural resources. We recognize Africa for its greatest resource, which is its people, their talents and their potential."

It goes on and on but I just have to stop here. If you have any conspiracy theories you can drop them in the comments section.

However, I have two major recommendations for African leaders:

1) Africans must unite, we must come together and stop fighting ourselves because Africa will only be built by Africans. A house divided against itself can never stand. We must come up with policies that would foster unity and economic activities among ourselves.

2)African leaders need to set aside budgets for Research and Technology. They must show enough financial commitment in this area and not always be on the receiving end.

God has blessed us with natural and human resources so we really have no excuse...It's up to us.
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Ebola Update: Was Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer A Biological Weapon?

There are twists and turns to this Ebola spread. It seems the Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, deliberately "deposited" Ebola in Nigeria from reports unfolding. The question now is why? 

Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian man who brought the Ebola virus into Nigeria, looked “terribly ill” and might have known he was infected with the virus before traveling to Nigeria, the Liberian media is reporting.

According to a review of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) images at the James Spriggs Payne’s Airport, Monrovia, by Liberian newspaper, The New Dawn, Mr. Sawyer, also a naturalised American, looked terribly ill and deliberately avoided contacts with people just before boarding the Asky Airline flight that brought him to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.

Describing his behaviour as “strange”, the The New Dawn said Mr. Sawyer bore a “sad countenance” like he was troubled and sat alone avoiding bodily contact with other passengers who came close to him at the boarding gate of the James Sprigg Payne’s Airport as he awaits his flight to Lagos.

According to Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Jide Idris, Mr Sawyer who was a consultant for the Liberian Ministry of Finance, arrived Lagos on July 23 to attend an ECOWAS convention in Calabar. He became terribly ill on the airplane just before it touched down in Lagos.

Some ECOWAS officials and airport staff helped him out of the airplane and rushed him to First Consultant Medical Centre, Obalende, where he died two days later.
“His strange behaviour and frequent movement up and down as he eagerly awaits his Asky flight had prompted the security camera operator to focus on him. In the video, Patrick could be seen avoiding physical contacts with airport employees and other passengers during the check in process,” the newspaper wrote.

Airport video footage, according to the report, also showed Mr. Sawyer lying flat on his stomach on the floor in the corridor of the airport and seemed to be in “excruciating pain.”
The footage showed Mr. Sawyer preventing people from touching him.
According to the The New Dawn reporter who reviewed the video, he even snubbed an Immigration officer who initiated a friendly gesture of a handshake moments before he boarded the airplane.

Source: Premium Times

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