Thanks to reader-researcher “W.”
The funny thing is, these African blacks sound just like their American cousins.
Note that Robyn Dixon’s dateline is Johannesburg, South Africa, 6,541 miles from the action by land, and 3,738 miles by air. That’s because she wants to live!
• @jumped2 People that don't want help shouldn't be helped. It is their right to die even if it can be avoided.
gaiapj
at 11:48 AM September 19, 2014
That was the one featured comment; I repeatedly tried to access the other eight comments, without any luck.
Eight reported dead in attack on Ebola workers in Guinea
Health workers in Conakry, Guinea, teach people about the Ebola virus and how to prevent infection in March. (Youssouf Bah / AP) [I guess they were safe, because they were black.]
By Robyn Dixon
September 18, 2014 3:14 P.M. Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa
Los Angeles Times
9 Comments [Inaccessible]
Eight reported dead as Ebola outreach team attacked in Guinea, pointing to challenges in fighting virus
Politician, journalists, others, missing in Guinea after being attacked during Ebola outreach effort
When Guinean government officials visited the village of Womme in the country’s southeast, they planned to educate people about Ebola and show them how to avoid it — in a region where many still believe the virus doesn’t exist.
But it all went disastrously wrong.
Villagers responded furiously, pelting the delegation with stones and beating the visitors with clubs, according to Guinean radio. The delegation, which included doctors and journalists, fled into the bush after the attack Tuesday.
Healthcare workers from Doctors Without Borders prepare isolation and treatment areas for Ebola patients in Gueckedou, Guinea. (Doctors Without Borders)
The Guinean government said Thursday that eight delegation members had been killed, including several journalists, news agencies reported. There also were reports that 21 people had been injured.
“It's very sad and hard to believe, but they were killed in cold blood by the villagers,” government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said, according to Agence France-Presse.
A local police officer, Richard Haba, said the villagers believed that Ebola “is nothing more than an invention of white people to kill black people.”
The incident underscores the challenges for local and international health teams fighting the Ebola virus in West Africa.
Womme is outside the town of Nzerekore, which saw a similar protest in recent weeks.
Since Ebola was first reported in this region in March — perhaps surfacing as early as December — medical agencies have experienced resistance from some residents. Doctors Without Borders, the main agency working in West Africa to stem Ebola, said it couldn’t work in at least 10 villages because of hostility among residents.
Photos
“This is a time of terror in a number of West African communities as they face the world's worst outbreak of Ebola. The outbreak was first reported in Guinea in March and spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal.” [How would an outbreak of a disease entail “a time of terror”?]
The World Health Organization announced Thursday that 2,622 people had died in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, out of more than 5,300 reported cases. The epidemic has put ramshackle local health systems under intense pressure, leaving people no place to seek help for other ailments such as malaria, to give birth, or even to get treatment for broken limbs.
Many health workers have fled their posts, afraid to work where the disease has killed hundreds of doctors, nurses and hygienists.
One reason the outbreak spread out of control in West Africa was fear of an incurable disease that kills more than half those infected and [hatred] suspicion of outsiders who came to take Ebola patients to hospitals. There was also alarm over warnings that people should abandon long, deeply held and important burial rituals, such as washing the bodies of the dead.
[Non sequitur alert! How would “fear” of a disease cause it to “spread out of control”?]
cComments
@jumped2 People that don't want help shouldn't be helped. It is their right to die even if it can be avoided.
gaiapj
at 11:48 AM September 19, 2014
Add a comment See all comments [Comments link disabled.]
9
In Guinea’s southeast, a search team was sent to track down the delegation after the attack in Womme, but villagers destroyed a bridge to keep police or the military out, according to national radio.
[Listen to them! They don’t want help.]
“A team has been dispatched to verify more information,” government spokesman Damantang Camara told Reuters.
A journalist who escaped the attack said she heard villagers hunting for delegation members, suggesting they may have been abducted, the BBC reported.
[Based on what we’ve heard, the villagers showed no interest in “abducting” delegation members. Slaughtering them, yes. Some journalist!]
Guinean radio quoted one Womme resident as saying that the delegation was attacked after medical workers sprayed disinfectant to control the spread of the virus in public places.
The assault followed similar attacks against medical workers or health officials in several other villages and towns in recent weeks. Last month, riots erupted after a medical team sprayed a marketplace in the same region as rumors spread that it was a conspiracy to infect the population.
[Routine black African/American practice: When you want to murder someone, you first spread a rumor that he is seeking to harm you, or has already done so, e.g., that he has stolen your penis.]
In Sierra Leone, government officials ordered everyone to stay at home for three days in an effort to control the spread of the disease.
International medical groups including Doctors Without Borders have criticized the measure, saying it will not contain the crisis.
Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that one of its workers caring for Ebola patients in isolation wards was diagnosed with the virus two days earlier and that it took too long to evacuate her.
[What does "too long" mean? Did she die?]
Brice de le Vingne, operations manager for the organization, said there was an unacceptable delay of 42 hours because the only aircraft equipped to transport the worker, a Frenchwoman, came from the U.S. He called on the European Union and other nations to station an evacuation plane in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, where most new cases are emerging.
The WHO has warned that 20,000 people could be infected before the disease is brought under control.
The International Monetary Fund has announced plans to provide loans of $127 million to the three worst-affected countries to help them cope with the crisis.
Follow @RobynDixon_LAT for more news from Africa.
UPDATE
3:14 p.m.: This post was updated with reports of eight dead, quotes and details.
This article was originally posted at 12:16 p.m.
2 comments:
Obama committing our troops in Africa to fight the deadly ebola is scandalous and ludicrous. Imagine if you or your love ones had to go. One cannot even comprehend the consequences of this disastrous decision.
The problem isn't a highly contagious disease with high mortality, infecting hundreds of filthy, ignorant, superstitious savages. The problem is "caring."
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