[ElenaM]

I don't think there is any way to control this virus with this sort of nonsense held as the prevalent theory. We aren't talking about rumors among rural tribes in July and August. We're talking about today in the urban areas.

Guinea residents ‘refusing’ Ebola treatment Monday 29th September , 2014 6:40 am

Residents of the Guinean capital Conakry, hit hard by Ebola, say they are afraid to seek treatment at hospitals for fear of being poisoned by doctors, as the death toll across West Africa passed the 3,000 mark.

Local resident Tairu Diallo said on Friday that people living in his neighbourhood refused to seek medical help and instead stayed at home, trying to alleviate their symptoms with drugs bought at a pharmacy.

Diallo said people think doctors at hospitals inject patients with a deadly poison.

“If we have a stomach ache we don’t go to hospital because doctors there will inject you and you will die,” he said.

Many Guineans say local and foreign healthcare workers are part of a conspiracy which either deliberately introduced the outbreak, or invented it as a means of luring Africans to clinics to harvest their blood and organs.

[ElenaM]

Ebola outbreak: Australia will not send health workers to west Africa Sunday 28 September 2014

Australia will not send health workers to west Africa’s Ebola outbreak zones because there’s no way to get them home safely if they catch the disease.

Médecins Sans Frontières and World Health Organisation have urged the government to increase Australia’s contribution.

But the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, insists Australia is pulling its weight and says the World Health Organisation has not asked for on-the-ground health workers.

She said the Australian Defence Force and health department advised it was not possible to safely evacuate infected health workers back to Australia.

“The Australian government is not about to put at risk Australian health workers in the absence of credible evacuation plans that could bring our people back to Australia,” she told reporters in Melbourne.

The government is negotiating with Britain and the US on evacuations.

[Smokin' Joe]

“If we have a stomach ache we don’t go to hospital because doctors there will inject you and you will die,” he said.

Considering that in parts of Africa, not so long ago, needles were soaked/dipped in bleach and re-used because of the shortage of supplies (and may still be in some areas), an injection could be a death warrant.

Most superstition has a basis in fact, somewhere. Often, the interpretation of those facts is what is awry.

We're talking about today in the urban areas.

Ignorance and superstition are not exclusive to rural populations, despite what the urbane would tell us.