Compare and contrast essay: Ebola and Coronavirus Global Impact Kebede A Aragaw
Kebede Aragaw
Compare and contrast essay: Ebola and Coronavirus Global Impact
By definition, the virus is an extremely invisible parasite that may affect human beings and computers. Virus infection makes both human beings and computer abnormal and hence the normal function will be distorted. For instance, the Ebola virus and Coronavirus are among the virus that affect human beings’ well-being. It is possible to recall that Ebola virus which suddenly outbroke in February 2014 that primarily on the African continent and later on became a global epidemic within a month. After five years, Coronavirus first outbreaks at the end of 2019 in China and then became the global concern. Ethiopian health sector is weak compared to Western countries, but due to strong diplomacy an Ethiopian Airlines continues the flight to China regardless of the Coronavirus outbreak.
According to the time trend of these emerging infectious disease namely Ebola virus and Coronavirus, discussing the symptoms, corresponding treatment and possible prevention mechanism are pretty important. According to World Health Organization (WHO) definition, “an emerging disease is one that has appeared in a population for the first time, or that may have existed previously but is rapidly increasing in the incidence or geographic range” (WHO, 2020).
Ebola virus killed a lot of people in Africa in 2014 and it used to be the global population health concern. Moreover, in the first round Ebola-affected part of west African countries namely Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. During this time, health experts around the world participated to create the treatment for the disease and to provide the vaccination to peoples most affected by the Ebola virus. Especially the African Union and the World Health Organization played great role by funding financially, by providing necessary support by sending volunteer health experts to the highly affected areas with Ebola virus. Moreover, because of Addis Ababa is the head of Africa Union and the acting chief of African Union is former Ethiopian Prime Minister Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn decided to send a huge number of health expert delegates to mostly affected countries Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Ebola virus affected business among countries, a lot of people lost their lives, even doctors died.
According to information obtained from WHO, “Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases” (WHO, 2020). Coronaviruses are transmitted between animals and people. Common symptom of the infection includes respiratory symptoms, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, the infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure, and even death. Standard recommendations to prevent the spread of the infection includes regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs. Avoiding close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing.
Although the developed countries in Europe and North America have well- equipped treatment facilities and provide sufficient anti-virus drugs for other diseases, there is no treatment mechanism yet for Coronavirus. Due to frustration, western countries such as the USA and Europe, even developing countries from Africa continent except Ethiopia stopped flight to china due to Coronavirus. The majority of the nation concerned about flight of Ethiopian Airlines to china and asked Ethiopian Airline CEO Mr. Tewolde Gebremariam and Prime minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed about the issue. Both of them responded the same reason for not suspending Ethiopian Airlines Flight to China. The CEO of Ethiopian Airline Mr. Tewolde Gebremariam and Prime minister of Ethiopia Dr. Abiy Ahmed explained and try to convince the Ethiopian people and the concerned bodies through state media by stating the following reasons: The first possible reason they stated was the need for strong diplomacy between the Ethiopian government and the Chinese government. The people of Ethiopia criticizing, challenging the government, and recommending that to stop flight from Ethiopia to China and vice versa. They reason out that the Coronavirus is critical, and diplomacy is incomparable with the safety of the people. However, there are Ethiopian scholars who support the government action to continue diplomacy and showing true friendship. Additionally, they stated that stopping flight has a negative impact on diplomacy and ignoring diplomacy may discourage the trust between two countries for the future.
Second, they reasoned out stopping flight from Ethiopia to China, and from china to Ethiopia will affect the investment sector. It is obvious that the Ethiopia investment sector was dominated by Chinese investors almost for the last 7 years. Chinese direct investment in Ethiopia and bilateral trade is significantly increased from 2016 to 2019. Construction of high-rise towers, a shiny new Metro system and twisting spaghetti junctions, by Chinese engineers at Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa creates an appreciation for Chinese investors. In addition to this, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is under construction by Chinese investors in collaboration with Italian contractors.
Another reason is China plays great role in advancing the Ethiopia education sector. That is by supporting the government financially, directly by constructing schools with China’s government expense, by sending information technology experts who share experience to higher institution staffs, by offering a scholarship to fresh graduate students and many more. China offers every year more than 5,000 fresh graduates a full scholarship opportunity.
China has great contribution in the Ethiopian agricultural sector by supplying agricultural machinery to modernize the Ethiopian farming style. Chinese also has great contribution to the Ethiopia health sector. There are a lot of Chinese Doctors who work voluntarily in Ethiopia mainly eye specialists, surgery specialist and many more.
Even though coronavirus is a global concern and assuming Prevention mechanism as isolation and stopping flight is unfair and it weakens the trust among countries' relationships. Not only between countries, due to Coronavirus is transmitted with contact, but difficulty of the disease also discourages the connection of infected person and corresponding family which in turn creates a psychological problem and widen the gap of family relationship.
Moreover, Kenya's president criticizes the Ethiopian prime minster by questioning why not stop flight to China during this critical time for safety of the region. However, Former Ethiopian Health Minister is currently General Director of World Health organization neither criticize nor appreciate the Ethiopian Government for continuing flight to China. As a result, some of the Ethiopian scholars criticize the General Director of WHO for remaining silent about continual of Ethiopian Airlines flight to China.
To sum up, although Ethiopian Airlines the largest in Africa continues flight to five destinations in China since the Coronavirus outbreak, four people were recorded as suspected cases, but no one is yet confirmed to show a positive result. Showing concern and continuing diplomacy are appreciated, but Ethiopia's government decision to continue flight creates tension among the nation. Specially thinking about how we react to infected people with Coronavirus and understanding stigmatization can contribute to ongoing virus transmission is important. World Health Organization noted that since the emergence of COVID-19 we have seen instances of public stigmatization among populations, and Stigmatization could potentially contribute to more severe health problems, and create difficulties controlling the infectious diseases during an epidemic.
Works Cited
1. Morse, Stephen S. "Factors in the Emergence of Infectious Diseases. CDC." Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal 1.1 (1995).
2. Ogden, N. H., P. AbdelMalik, and J. R. C. Pulliam. "Emerging Infections: Emerging infectious diseases: prediction and detection." Canada Communicable Disease Report 43.10 (2017): 206.
3. WHO (2020) https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus
No comments:
Post a Comment