Posted on 08/29/2014 1:11:26 PM PDT by Covenantor
Zimbabwe Can't Conduct Ebola Tests - Ministry
Cape Town - Zimbabwe's health ministry has reportedly admitted it is not well equipped to deal with Ebola in the event of an outbreak in that southern African country.
News Day reported on Friday that the Zimbabwean government had no capacity to conduct tests to detect the deadly disease.
According to the report, officials in the ministry of health and child welfare said specimens from suspected cases of Ebola would be referred to South African laboratories for verification.
The Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had already organised a courier service which would take any suspected Ebola case specimen to South Africa, the report said.
This comes as a Daily News report said earlier this week that Zimbabwe’s state of preparedness on the Ebola outbreak had been branded as worrisome by aid agencies.
Economic sanctions
Health experts warned that a lot needed to be done in terms of information dissemination and infrastructure development at hospitals to quarantine patients in case of an outbreak amid economic hardships and poorly-stocked state hospitals, the report said.
Ebola has claimed 1 552 in West Africa, according to the WHO, with 3 069 suspected or confirmed cases in the region.
The disease causes massive haemorrhaging and has a fatality rate of up to 90%. It is transmitted through contact with blood and other bodily fluids.
Reports say that Zimbabwe's health sector has been affected by brain-drain and funding constraints over the past 14 years.
President Robert Mugabe blames the poor state of health facilities on what he terms the West’s illegal economic sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States.
Mugabe like Obama blames everyone else.
I think Mugabe should be sent to do an executive inspection of the West Point slum of Liberia.
I bet Rhodesia could have.
Rhodesia would definitely have been on top of it. Now Mugabe is busily expropriating what white property is left and turning a blind eye to black-on-white murders.
I would love it if the US admitted all of Rhodesia's whites as refugees fleeing persecution, and let Mugabe and his supporters face the oncoming storm alone.
Indeed, but that was when they were a country, now it’s just a despots cesspool.
Talk about some refugees the media would despise and want to stop.
Most people don’t remember that with all the media love of immigrants and refugees, in the 1970s we suddenly saw the media turn cold, when those refugees were South Vietnamese fleeing communism.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Once upon a time, Rhodesia fed most of Africa, and exported food to the rest of Africa and the world. For profit. And blacks and whites had a really good social infrastructure with a reasonably high standard of living.
Just damn how that “white privilege” does that.
Now, after MooGRABwee chased ‘whitey’ our and “gave back” all that land that no one ever farmed before, (oh, they pizzed and sheeet on it for centuries) Zimbabwe is a basket case that needs to IMPORT food.
It’s that “white privilege” thingee, all over again.
I remember that all too well.
“We will bear any burden, go any mile.......”
Sooo, yours truly stood in the middle of a refugee camp, as a lowly enlisted man, and was tasked to “administer” all those “boat people.”
And as they came ashore, with bitterness in their hearts, they asked me: “Bear any burden? Go any Mile?”
I was just an enlisted man, put in a place where I had to be the first American that those refugees encountered.
I’ll skip the rest. Its been a long day, and my heart is weary and will never be made right.
Thanks for the ping!
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Must have been a terrible assignment.
Thank you for your service.
Corruption and chaos....
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